99 And 44/100% Dead couldn't get off to a better start. Henry Mancini's catchy score blasts out over pop art-inspired credits. A body wearing concrete boots is dumped into the river and, as it sinks to the bottom, we see hundreds more concrete booted corpses dotted around the underwater landscape. Then in a comically sardonic voice-over by Richard Harris, we are introduced to the off-kilter characters and settings of this absurdist gangster comedy-thriller. In its opening five minutes, 99 And 44/100% Dead promises to be yet another box of delights from director John Frankenheimer. Alas, there are 92 minutes still to go
and the film runs out of ideas and inspiration faster than you can utter the title. All potential for a quirky black comedy quickly vanishes, replaced by a tedious and confusing mess that seems to go out of its way to embarrass its cast.
Gangster Frank Kelly (Edmond O'Brien) controls the underworld of a city. That is until rival mobster Big Eddie (Bradford Dillman) declares open war against him. The city ain't big enough for the two of them, and pretty soon the streets become lawless killing fields where assassinations, gunfights and ambushes are part of daily life. Frank hires Harry Crown (Richard Harris), a tough and resourceful hit man, to help him to re-establish control. Harry finds himself waging war on Big Eddie's minions – including his old one-handed nemesis "The Claw" Zuckerman (Chuck Connors), who can fix various deadly weapons to the stump of his missing hand.
Intended as a black comedy, 99 And 44/100% Dead simply isn't very funny. The title - which mocks a famous American soap commercial of the day – is every bit as haphazard and clumsy as the rest of the film. Harris has precious little to work with as the hero of the piece, but at least he does what he can. Bradford Dillman only features in a couple of scenes as Big Eddie, but in these scenes he manages to embarrass himself quite hideously in one of the decade's worst exhibitions of self-indulgence (second only to Peter Boyle's jaw-dropping display in Swashbuckler). Robert Dillman's script darts all over the place, paying little heed to character or logic. While the occasional bursts of action are competently staged, they don't fit around the rest of the narrative to create a coherent whole. Even a director of Frankenheimer's pedigree cannot sculpt the unwieldy mess into something solid and workable. In the final analysis, 99 And 44/100% Dead is a thorough let down from talents capable of much better.
Gangster Frank Kelly (Edmond O'Brien) controls the underworld of a city. That is until rival mobster Big Eddie (Bradford Dillman) declares open war against him. The city ain't big enough for the two of them, and pretty soon the streets become lawless killing fields where assassinations, gunfights and ambushes are part of daily life. Frank hires Harry Crown (Richard Harris), a tough and resourceful hit man, to help him to re-establish control. Harry finds himself waging war on Big Eddie's minions – including his old one-handed nemesis "The Claw" Zuckerman (Chuck Connors), who can fix various deadly weapons to the stump of his missing hand.
Intended as a black comedy, 99 And 44/100% Dead simply isn't very funny. The title - which mocks a famous American soap commercial of the day – is every bit as haphazard and clumsy as the rest of the film. Harris has precious little to work with as the hero of the piece, but at least he does what he can. Bradford Dillman only features in a couple of scenes as Big Eddie, but in these scenes he manages to embarrass himself quite hideously in one of the decade's worst exhibitions of self-indulgence (second only to Peter Boyle's jaw-dropping display in Swashbuckler). Robert Dillman's script darts all over the place, paying little heed to character or logic. While the occasional bursts of action are competently staged, they don't fit around the rest of the narrative to create a coherent whole. Even a director of Frankenheimer's pedigree cannot sculpt the unwieldy mess into something solid and workable. In the final analysis, 99 And 44/100% Dead is a thorough let down from talents capable of much better.