Johnny Depp

Gary Farmer

Crispin Glover

Lance Henriksen

Michael Wincott

Eugene Byrd

John Hurt

Robert Mitchum

Iggy Pop

Gabriel Byrne

Jared Harris

Mili Avital

Jimmie Ray Weeks

Mark Bringelson

John North

Alfred Molina

Billy Bob Thornton

Michelle Thrush

Steve Buscemi

Gibby Haynes

Richard Boes

Bob Ziembicki

Robby Müller

Jay Rabinowitz

Jim Jarmusch

Randall Balsmeyer

Lou Carlucci

Jon Farhat

Marit Allen

Robert Hein

Magdaline Volaitis

Al Jones

Demetra J. MacBride

Laura Rosenthal

Ted Berner

Dayna Lee

Neil Young

Ellen Lewis

Erik Stabenau

Beth DePatie

Tom Irvin

Michael Blair

Mark Balda

Richard Alonzo

Todd Kleitsch

Leon Laderach

Michael Bennett

Constance L. Hoy

Todd Pfeiffer

Joel Harlow

Jude Gorjanc

Arthur Allyn

Clare M. Corsick

Christopher Allen Nelson

Edie Douglass

Suzanne Lapick

Tony Gibson

Kevin Hughes

George A. Fleming

Bill Holmquist

Craig Anthony Muzio

Kenneth Stellar

David Dupuis

Scott W. Farley

Neal Martz

Elizabeth A. Beckman

Jack Orlando

John Pattison

Karen M. Clark

James Stephenson

John A. Foote

Richard Lambert

Walt Mikolwski

Terry Kempf

Mark Borg

Hextro

John C. Carlucci

Marc Rubone

Mark Goodermote

Mark DeSimone

Daniel Leung

Anne Putnam Kolbe

Marko Costanzo

Frank Kern

Joe Garert

Julie Lindner

Mark Habegger

Dan Evans Farkas

Kirk R. Gardner

Steven T Puri

Coll Anderson

James Brisbin

Jon Hokanson

Kenneth Sylvester

Stacey Tanner

Brick Mason

Héctor Cordero

Ken Smith

Mimi Abers

Stephen M. Vernarelli

Kam Chan

Keith Culbertson

Tori Bridges

Kimberly R. McCord-Wilson

Sylvia Menno

Joe Fordham

Shari Hilliard

Bruce Pross

Mae Brunken

Nori Honda

Kenny Davis

Todd Heater

Lisa K. Ferguson

Pim Tjujerman

Michael Palmer

Bobby L. Smith

Robert K. Feldmann

Chris Lombardi

Byron McCulloch

Drama

Fantasy

Western

Dead Man

Newmarket Capital Group

12 Gauge Productions

Pandora Film

United States of America

Japan

Germany

Filipe Manuel Neto

**A somewhat surrealist film, which has value, but which is not for everyone's taste.**

This film is a little disconcerting. It is an uncompromising Western, frontal, very raw and sometimes difficult to understand. It all starts with William Blake, an accountant from the East Coast, taking a train to a remote place in the West, to accept a job in the company of an unscrupulous industrialist. It turns out that the vacancy was filled by someone else: at the end of the day, unmotivated, he goes to bed with a prostitute and ends up killing a man who tried to kill her out of jealousy. This man was the son of the factory owner, who sends henchmen after Blake, who is unaware of this and runs away, ending up in the company of a strange Indian named Nobody.

The film has great artistic note. It has excellent black and white cinematography, makes intelligent use of light, shadow, angles and filming framing. The sets and costumes are very good: they are not particularly rigorous from a historical point of view, the film was not concerned with being strictly framed in time and space, so that aesthetics prevails over the realism of the recreation. However, the aesthetic value is remarkable, and it gives us a raw, rough and dirty vision of the West. Jim Jarmusch ensures effective management that makes the most of what's in its hands. There are a good number of visual effects and the soundtrack, based on the electric guitar, is atmospheric and somehow fits into the film effectively, even if it is never one of the soundtracks that we will want to have on CD.

The film has a series of good actors, of which Johnny Depp stands out in an almost natural way. He was still young here, but he already showed his taste for playing the most bizarre characters. However, and perhaps because of the bizarre nature of the film itself, it is not one of the actor's greatest works. Iggy Pop, Robert Mitchum and Crispen Glover are also here, and they do an interesting and sincere job, in rough, tough characters, with few lines and a lot of presence and impact.

The big problem with the film – and it really is a big one – is that it is so apparently complex and almost surreal. At various times it is suggested that the character played by Depp is a man who is already dead, and there is almost a synesthesia between the accountant and his British namesake, who was an artist and poet and who would be, at the time of the events of the film, really dead! It's very strange, and such strangeness makes this not a film for everyone's taste.