Killing Emmett Young (2002)

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Indeed, in the end we find out that Emmett Young is the mass murderer himself! How is this a possibility you might inquire? Well, he keeps noticing the tattoos on the young ladies instead of the young ladies themselves especially that one hot black haired young lady bartender he just keeps asking a lot of dumb questions without much noticing how gorgeous she is even though she clearly states to him that she is single. He also seems to ignore his pretty partner police officer but not in a gay kind of way, but more in the crazy kind of mass murdering way. See, the viewers are distracted from noticing Emmett Young's psychotic behavior in the end, because we are so deeply concerned about his ill health at the beginning. One gets the impression that perhaps the assassin trying to kill Emmett Young is the mass murderer because his place is a mess with lots of pornography. In comparison, Emmett's place is clean and wholesome. It is when the assassin is rummaging around Emmett's place that he finds evidence of him being the true mass murderer. At least, that is my interpretation.

Young cop Emmet Young gets the news has only weeks to live. An ex-cop offers him a solution: A hit-man will kill Emmet thus sparing him a long and painful deathbed. Emmet takes the deal, but than finds out the hospital screwed up. He isn't dying. Now he has to stop the hit-man. In a substory he is also pursuing a serial killer who rapes en kills young women. On all fronts time is running out.I liked this movie very much. The actors are good, especially Wolf and Roth. The script is original and avoids the pitfalls of cliché and stays logical. This is the first time I really liked Scott Wolf in a role. He plays Emmet as a young and intelligent but obsessive cop. I liked the fact that the director really took his time to let us in the life of the hit-man (Roth). It made the final showdown so much more powerful.Though the film probably had a fraction of the budget most blockbusters have, this doesn't show in the film. The sounds and visuals are very well done. I highly recommend it

It was made in Philly, my hometown, and having Gabriel Byrne plus Tim Roth probably assured some decent acting, but as luck had it, Pam figured out the mistaken diagnosis before the film was 15 minutes old. Thus as I watched the rest of the film develop, I kept thinking in the back of my mind, 'does the Police Health & Welfare Plan rule out second opinions?' Man is told he is going to die soon from an illness, and he doesn't see if the doctor could be mistaken.I read the other reviews where some praise and some damn the film's open end style. In this case I think the writer(s) may simply have run out of inspiration or ideas. Do we want Emmett to go back to his girlfriend, or get involved with his co-worker? Who knows? We will let the viewers decide. What does it mean when Roth can't pull the trigger? Is this some sort of comment on his whole sexual life, or is he granting life in place of the one he took previously? The pose seems almost out of Michaelangelo's Creation on the ceiling at the Sistine. Is failed detective Roth giving the spark of life to the man he just wounded? The questions keep piling up. The serial rapist drives an SUV; so does Emmett? Coincidence? I have played solve the crime board games that were more enlightened than this series of questions.Pam, and another reviewer, commented on the phone conversation between Emmett and Roth. I'd driven past this intersection on April 4th of this year. The camera actually dresses up the area, and while there is a union hiring hall nearby, and the area is less than a mile from police headquarters, the site of two white men standing on that corner meant that it was either just after daylight or an optical illusion. In fact, I found the views of neighborhoods during foot chases eliminated any of the demographics of Philadelphia. The only Black people we see seem to be policemen.

Scott Wolf has the unique problem of looking like he's twenty when he's nearing forty. In Emmett's Mark (the better name of this movie because it can refer to more things, such as his signature, his legacy and his end), Wolf is a believable living character despite his unchanging looks. He plays Emmett Young well. The terminally ill Philly Homicide Detective is a real person with understandable doubts and fears. A character that is lived in, not just faked.The seamless acting, direction and editing is a highlight of this poorly received film. As is Tim Roth (Cunningham in Rob Roy), as the soft-spoken first-timer hit man. A character trying to dig himself out of the hole of a failed life. His casting convinced me to hold off flipping the channel. If you can see it for free (or a nominal fee) it is not likely to inspire your wrath against the production.Gabriel Byrne, comfortably becoming a terrific character actor, plays a Mafioso type, who arranges the 'mercy killing' and adds to the quiet, morose atmosphere of a dark story about the lives we fight for and those that we abandon when times get too tough. There are many interesting themes and strange developing emotions laden in the film.Not a masterpiece, due to the musical score, though it had allusions to other films that have made more wake in the cinematic world that in retrospect were borderline copyright infringement. The final scene is taken, as far as I know, directly from the airport scene from HEAT, which is taken from Bullitt. This is the movie business, not church. No one wants a new idea when they can have a good idea.Emmett's Mark is an Interesting, unique, non-threatening film, although the main character pays someone to kill him before the cancer does. Things sort of just work out for Emmett and against Tim Roth, but it is still a bit of a downer.