Down By Law

The grab on the back of the dvd copy of Down By Law that we rented quotes its director as describing it as neo-beat noir comedy, or something to that effect, and why not? It's as good a description as any. Its joys are many, but principally twofold - the distinctively and deliberately 'filmic' nature of Jarmusch's black and white direction, and the interactions between Tom Waits, John Lurie and Roberto Benigni (for mine, the scene where they start hooting and trampling around their prison cell to 'I scream-a, you scream-a, we all scream-a for ice-cream-a!' was practically worth the price of admission on its own). That said, its drifting style verged on being too slow in places, particularly for its first half; of the eight of us who started watching it (admittedly none too early in the evening), only M, D and I made it to the end. (The others being W, K, AB, AC and C, being the current members of book club less TV, who'd left for Melbourne earlier in the day, needing to get to a wedding.)