Product Details

• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: German, Spanish, English
• Subtitled in: Spanish, English

Amazon.com
This remake of a 1947 film noir casts David Caruso (freshly escaped from TV's NYPD Blue) in the role originally played by Victor Mature. He plays Jimmy Kilmartin, a reformed criminal struggling to keep straight and keep his wife (Helen Hunt) from going back to the bottle. But a favor for his cousin lands him back in the clink, and when his wife dies, he comes out ready to make a deal with the D.A. He becomes an informant, joining the crew of Little Junior Brown (Nicolas Cage), a pumped-up, asthmatic psycho who weightlifts strippers for amusement. Eventually, Jimmy finds himself forced to keep his radar up for treachery from both the criminals he's finking on and the cops he's working for. This film, directed by Barbet Schroeder, didn't do much business, despite a powerful but controlled performance by Caruso and a scarily splashy one by Cage. --Marshall Fine

From The New Yorker
Barbet Schroeder's workmanlike remake of the 1947 crime melodrama, about the perils of a small-time New York crook who becomes a stool pigeon, demonstrates that gritty urban realism isn't what it used to be. Despite a wonderful cast-which includes David Caruso (as the sensitive squealer), Helen Hunt, Samuel L. Jackson, and Stanley Tucci-and a crafty, low-key screenplay by Richard Price, the picture feels a little lethargic. Only Nicolas Cage manages to dispel the over-all air of weary professionalism. He plays the chief villain, a positive-thinking, bodybuilding thug named Little Junior, as a kind of murderous innocent. It's an original, alarmingly funny performance, and it's just what this picture needs. Also with Kathryn Erbe, Michael Rapaport, and Ving Rhames. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Kiss Me Baby!
When David Caruso made headlines by leaving the hit TV show "NYPD Blue," the question people were asking was "Is he making a mistake?" Looking back on his career the past few years, we have to say that he did. But you couldn't tell that from his performance in "Kiss of Death." He's actually quite good.

Caruso plays Jimmy Kilmartin, a reformed car thief with a wife and baby who is desperately trying to go straight. Before he does, though, he reluctantly agrees to help his worthless cousin Ronny (Michael Rapaport) on one last run. If he doesn't, then Little Junior (Nicholas Cage), a sadistic killer, will bury Ronny. Naturally, things go bad. A cop gets shot and Jimmy ends up taking the fall by himself.

True to his personal code of honor, Jimmy won't rat out the others no matter how hard the sleazy DA (Stanley Tucci) pushes him. Then Ronny starts to move in on Jimmy's wife (Helen Hunt) and things really go wrong. Jimmy agrees to make a deal and cunningly manipulates events so that Little Junior takes Ronny down.

Three years later, Jimmy finally gets out of prison. The DA's not about to let things drop, however. He wants Little Junior bad and he'll do what it take to get him, even if that means using Jimmy and his family.

The plot of "Kiss of Death" is loosely based on the 1947 original-a class film noir-which featured Victor Mature, and Richard Widmark in his star?making role. (Remember his maniacal giggle as he pushed the old lady down the stairs?)

The story's been updated and it is grittier, realer and even more gripping. Novelist Richard Price ("Clockers") wrote the screenplay and he is one of the very best writers working in movies today. He has a true affinity for the seedy side of life and the characters and situations that populate his films are always enthralling to watch.

The direction by Barbet Schroeder ("Reversal of Fortune") is tense, well?paced and energetic. The acting is very good, especially by Caruso and Cage. Caruso is a very subtle and contained actor, much like Robert Mitchum, a veteran of many films noir. Also like Mitchum, Caruso seems like a powder keg about to go off. He projects seething fire and intensity without overplaying his hand.

Cage is mostly known for his dimwitted nice guy, hero roles, but he shows here that he has some real chops, creating a maniacal thug with a hair?trigger temper. With his pumped?up body and goatee, he has a hard look that goes great with his intense persona. It would have been very easy to go over?the?top with this part, but Cage never does. This is a very good performance.

The ending is the weakest part of the movie. It seems that the filmmakers ran out of gas and had to settle for less than the picture deserves. This is not a great crime film like "Goodfellas" or "Pulp Fiction," but it still makes for an enjoyable viewing.

Good story. Acting left a little to be desired.
Frankly I enjoyed this film. I love Helen Hunt and Samuel L.Jackson. I thought that Nicholas Cage seemed a little bit amateur but as this film is 11 years old, perhaps he was at the time or perhaps it was just the psychotic role that he was interpreting. On the whole, I found it engrossing and quite exciting.

Adequate reworking of 1947 classic
Adequate reworking of the 1947 classic "Kiss of Death." David Caruso takes over for Victor Mature as the ex-con whose attempts to go straight are hindered when he does a favor for his cousin and winds up back in the slammer. Nicolas Cage hams it up as "Little Junior," an update of Tommy Udo, the role so memorably played by Richard Widmark in the original. This picture did not make Caruso, fresh from TV's "NYPD Blue," a movie star, but he is very good, more than holding his own against the showier Cage with a quiet but intense performance. The rest of the cast is fine, too, and "Kiss of Death" delivers the goods as promised, but doesn't linger in the mind the way the original tends to do. But then neither Cage nor Caruso get a scene as memorable as the one for which the 1947 edition continues to be known: Richard Widmark pushing an old woman tied into her wheelchair down a flight of stairs, laughing all the while.