Dead in a Week: Or Your Money Back, written and directed by Tom Edmunds - Seven out of 10

Dead in a Week: Or Your Money Back, written and directed by Tom Edmunds

Seven out of 10

Tom Wilkinson is one of the best actors of our age, the artist who gave phenomenal performances in The Full Monty, Shakespeare in Love, In the Bedroom, especially in Normal and so many other films lifted to another level by the presence of this formidable man.

Notwithstanding that, even he cannot bring Dead in a Week to the elite, small number of memorable comedies, given the rather flimsy plot, after an initial rather promising debut it veers into irrelevance.

There is also the issue of the manner of acting chosen by Christopher Eccleston, the writer-director or both, which results in a rather one-dimensional act, where the protagonist, Harvey, appears as a rather silly, if not outright stupid young man, brave enough to face death, yet cowardly and intimated for most of the time.

Harvey aka Christopher Eccleston tries to commit suicide in the opening scenes, by jumping off a bridge, when a man, Leslie played by the marvelous Tom Wilkinson, approaches him and talks about the upcoming event, offers a card and his services if later needed…

The hero – or maybe better said antihero – jumps into the river, but he had not seen that a ship was sailing under and he ends up falling through the roof, crashing into what looks like a dance party and he is saved from one of the multiple attempts that we learn he had made on his life repeatedly, trying electrocution, only to have the fuses blow the electricity off and various other methods that came to no happy – or is it tragic – end.

Suicide is a contagious phenomenon, it even has a psychological effect named after the famous The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, wherein the main character commits suicide and then many readers would follow his example.

Nevertheless, in the case of Harvey, he calls the number on the card which says assassin, to see how the mysterious stranger can help him, then they meet in a bar where the professional killer explains that they can sign a contract and then he would end his misery in the way the client choses, shot, poisoned…

There is even a brochure that gives the potential customer the options, including a glorious one where the soon to be dead man pushes a child that is about to be hit and mortally wounded by a bus out of harm’s way only to meet his maker in his place – if there is a Maker of course.

Since the prospect has only two thousand pounds available for this project, he can only get an ordinary demise, without flamboyance and much effort on the part of the hired assassin, but he is however guaranteed a pain-less death, in the next week, after they sign the contract.

The signing and the first part offer some good moments of mirth – hence the rating of seven, much more than critics gave it so far- only 39 on average – and the public, a bit more generous with 6.4

After this important decision, the hero, who has written a book about his numerous attempts to take his own life, receives call from a publishing house, where Ellie aka Freya Mavor has enjoyed his work and wants to meet to talk about it, next week if possible.

That would not do for the writer who would be a corpse by then, or his Money Back according to the murder contract, so he suggests the following day, contacting his would be killer to ask for a hiatus, an extension of the one-week period.

When they meet, the two young people seem to connect, even if the style of Freya Mavor seems to be a little – or much – too abrasive, aggressive somehow – granted the script is intended to be amusing in a macabre way, so it might be that this is the only way to render what could be flawed lines.

Ellie has a more than obnoxious boss, who makes fun of the tragic status of the failed serial suicide, suggesting that they launch the printed material once he expires and insisting on his morbid idea – since he is going to die anyway, why not…

Suddenly, this loathsome man is shot dead at the table, killed by the hired assassin, who would later emphasize that someone would have wanted a contract on such a horrid individual anyway, the target being Harvey, who is saved and taken under cover by Ellie, who then offer shelter in his own house.

Following this botched murder, Leslie is summoned to the higher authority of the guild of Assassins and from here on, the script is losing it and it appears that what was in the first place a promising idea, treated with restraint and talent, became a convoluted and rather uninspiring proposal.

Unsatisfied with the activity of the once proficient killer, the guild leader, Brian, wants the older man to take the final gift, a watch, and consider the fact that he has not fulfilled his quota of murders, he has failed in the last endeavor and hence he needs to retire.

When Leslie refuses, another contractor is sent to finish him off, but at his house, the rebel is absent – he has just gone to continue work on his unfulfilled contract – and the poor budgies of the family are killed instead.

The other assassin who shoots the birds’ lover, with evident further twists ahead, interrupts a confrontation between Leslie, his target and Ellie.

Dead in a Week would not make you ask for the money back, but it is forgettable feature and a waste of the enormous talent of Tom Wilkinson.