ecanarensis I find it somewhat stunning that this was advertised as a thriller...if it was, the ad folks oughta get a visit from a hit man. I was extremely hesitant about seeing it, as I've had somewhat excessive exposure to alcoholics...I had a very hard time imagining a movie about one as being very funny. The humor got wrung out of that subject a very long time ago for me. But, oddly enough, someone at AA recommended it to a friend, & there we were. Turned out to be pretty funny. Here's a surprise; Kingsley is great. I tend to think of Tea Leoni as sort of a lightweight generic Hollywood blond, but was favorably impressed with her; I thought she played well off of Kingsley's very low key, understated performance. I'm rather surprised at how many other reviewers commented on being surprised at the age difference between her & Kingsley...this is unexpected in Hollywood?! There's been so many "February-December" (forget May-December) romances in movies it's well beyond cliché & arrived at business as usual. The first meeting where Frank talks is a pretty priceless scene...you just know nobody's going to forget that particular evening. I thought it worked really well as a very funny, deftly dark comedy that dealt with some grim topics with just the right touch.

gavin6942 While drying out on the West Coast and working as a mortician, an alcoholic hit man (Ben Kingsley) befriends a tart-tongued woman (Tea Leoni) who might just come in handy when it is time for him to return to Buffalo and settle some old scores.Leoni plays a good supporting role, but Kingsley is the guy running the show here. He is such a great actor, it is a shame he seems to be ending up in more and more smaller films (e.g. "The Wackness"). He is a great hit-man, great alcoholic, and the mortician scenes are priceless.Bill Pullman is good as Dave the real estate agent. His role is small, but he has the best line of the film, spouting the wisdom that "in a town with a 2% vacancy rate, the real estate agent is God." Luke Wilson also appears and seems to be wasted in his supporting role. This does nothing to showcase his talents and could have been filled by another actor for half the price. (This is not a knock on Wilson, but on whoever cast him -- give the man room to work.)

nomerit Comedy? What's so funny about watching an ugly deadbeat alcoholic attending 6 sessions (by the time I turned it off) of alchoholics anonymous? Set off by a woeful script of grunts and mumbles and drunken slurrings. Served up with lashings of Hollywood's religious "God will Save you" redemption drivel Another Reviewer mentioned the "Sassy dialogue" of Tea Leone - well I managed to watch nearly an hour of this boring film and I still haven't seen any sassy yet - in fact my 80 year old grandmother has more amusing comebacks than Tea's character in this rubbish. Tea is more stony faced and shows less emotion than Keanu - in fact one wonders if she too isn't addicted to something - maybe botox her face is so wooden? Save yourself from being killed with boredom from this film.

d_petzold300 This movie stars Ben Kingsley as Frank, a hit man for some Russian mobsters based out of Buffalo. He is also a raging alcoholic, and this has caused his job performance to decline. After he falls asleep in his car during a would-be hit, his mob boss uncle sends him to San Francisco, where he is to attend AA meetings and get a job as a mortician's assistant. If you're thinking that this makes absolutely no sense, you're not alone.It gets worse. Well, it actually gets better, but not before getting much, much worse. Frank suddenly becomes a master mortician in spite of a complete lack of training, but his reactions with the people in the funeral home and the AA meetings are interesting. The viewer starts to root for him as they notice positive changes in his life. Luke Wilson is a welcome addition as Frank's sponsor, although he is given almost nothing to do (his character does tell us he is gay, but this ends up having no significance whatsoever). The movie plunges headlong into idiocy with the introduction of the Tea Leoni character. She is completely unrealistic, and her role as a love interest to Frank flounders, as the two actors have no chemistry together. Around the time she comes into the picture, Frank becomes much less engrossing as a character. His characterization is seemingly random; there is no consistency in his behavior. The comedy is low-key and only intermittently funny, especially disappointing considering the comedic pedigree of the cast.Problems abound in this one. Kingsley's accent is terrible and inconsistent. It alternates between Italian, Russian, and Hispanic. Throughout the course of the movie, Frank tells numerous people he is a hit man (including an entire AA group), but nobody seems to care, or wants to do anything about it. The movie relies on cliché scenes to carry it through its final act, most notably when Leoni's insufferable character chases Frank down at the airport, just when he is about to board a flight back to Buffalo.Though it has a strong premise and an interesting first half-hour, the movie quickly becomes a total disaster and devolves into complete nonsense. At the end of the film, Frank celebrates one year of sobriety. I hope to celebrate many, many years of not having seen "You Kill Me". My Grade: D+