Sadly Over-hyped

Absolutely the worst movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

A Masterpiece!

All The Reviews Claim That "This Is The Best Movie You Have Never Seen" And They Are Right ... Whitaker (An Excellent Actor) Is A Hit-man For The Mob Who Calls Himself "Ghost Dog" And Lives His Life According To The Philosophy Of The Ancient Samurai ... The Idea Of The Movie (In My Opinion) Is To Give The Newer Generations A Way To Understand And Relate To The Ancient Customs Of The Samurai ... The Movie Brilliantly Achieves This Goal ... The Movie Is Full Of Subtle Innuendos That Are Marvelous If You Take The Time To "Watch" The Movie ... Directed With A Care That Is Rarely Seen In Movies ... A Must Seen On Any List ...

This Jarmusch film needs to be compared with Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 French film "Le Samourai" because both stories are essentially the same. Further both films have birds playing a major role. Both films have a female witness to a key assassination. Both films have the assassin stealing cars.Thankfully the Jarmusch film shows birds returning to thank the humans and the bonding is key. For Melville, the bird seemed to have intelligence and communicated to the human through unusual twittering. Jarmusch was probably closer to reality here.Jarmusch succeeds where Melville failed by adding philosophy, interesting supporting characters--the ice cream vendor and the smart girl who carries books in her lunch box. Melville merely reduced the story to a cop and an assassin trying to resolve the respective mysteries.

In terms of the actual content, I had never seen Jarmusch make a crime/action film. But once you extend from that, you realize that yes, this is very much a Jarmusch film. The acing, the look, the tone of the whole thing, very reminiscent of an art foreign film in terms of what it actually does. Don't get me wrong, the film does have enough action, but yeah, it won't be for anyone. I didn't love it and if I hadn't seen other Jarmusch films before I would probably grade it lower, but I already know how his films tend to fare with me over time, so I'm taking that into account. Definitely something to linger in the mind, see how it actually does a few months from now.

This is by far Jarmusch's best film. I'm all for slow flicks if they work, but man, Jarmusch just doesn't have many good flicks.That said, this movie is just downright ill. The ice cream cat in this joint is one of the best characters I've ever seen. Forest bring the house down as always. The Rza lays down an original score that I copped immediately after I saw this.Calling this Jarmusch's best film doesn't say much for an underwelming body of work, but this movie is just straight up dope filmmaking. Period.