After seeing so many new mainstream movies recently such as ‘Salt’, ‘Inception’, and ‘Dinner for Schmucks’ I decided to go back to my roots and check out a movie most people have likely never heard of before. I came across After Life and was pleasantly surprised by the cast and movie itself. Check out the full review and trailer after the jump.
‘After Life’ was released back in November of 2009 at the AFI Film Festival. It then saw a limited release in theaters this past April. Once I started watching and saw the cast I was surprised that this movie had not been advertised for, or at least I had never seen one for the movie, even the DVD.
Anyway the cast consists of some well-known actors and an actress. The movie centers around three characters, Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci), Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) and Paul (Justin Long). Eliot Deacon is a funeral home director that can speak to the dead. The first time that he spoke to the dead in the movie I felt as though it was something I had seen countless times before; however, before the scene was over I knew this was a new fresh twist on an old concept. Normally talking to the dead is to gain information, scare the audience, or act as a medium to convey an emotion directly to a character that’s already died. In After Life, talking to the dead occurs to help the dead move on and accept their death. It was something I had seen partially done before but not in this way.
I felt the acting in the movie was excellent. I’ve always liked Justin Long and Liam Neeson as actors. I hadn’t really seen much of Christina Ricci but after this movie I intend to see more of her work. I will note here that my desire to see more Christina Ricci movies is not because she is naked the majority of this movie. I felt like she played a good confused dead person that comes to grips with the fact that they are in fact dead. As mentioned before there are some pretty well known names, so its not surprising the acting delivered.
If you happen to come across this movie I’d say give it a watch. The movie isn’t very fast paced, but I feel like it doesn’t drag along much. It’s a mix between a thriller and horror movie. It never gets scary in the sense of things jumping out, but some of the scenes have a very dark side. At the end of the day I can say I’m glad that I came across this movie, let me know if you feel the same way.
Check Out the Trailer Below:
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