“Hey, ya’ll motherfuckers want to get weird”?
There may not be a better way to start the trailer for The Death of Dick Long, the latest film from Swiss Army Man co-director Daniel Scheinert, one half of the duo known as The Daniels. If you saw that bizarre movie in which Daniel Radcliffe spent the entirety of it as a corpse, you know weird is to be expected. Here, he’s once again dealing with death in a quirky, offbeat way resembling the work of the Coen Brothers.
There’s nothing ambiguous about the title. The unusual death of Dick Long (played by Scheinert himself) after some questionable antics with his buddies opens up an investigation that rocks a southern community full of colorful, oddball characters. Dick’s pals, who know exactly how it happened, try to cover it up but prove to be a couple of idiots. Then, I’m not sure if even the cops, one of which is played by the hilarious Sarah Baker, are fully on-the-ball.
The cast includes Michael Abbott Jr., Virginia Newcomb, Andre Hyland, Sarah Baker, Jess Weixler, Sunita Mani, Roy Wood Jr., Poppi Cunningham, and Janelle Cochrane. Billy Chew wrote the script, his first ever.
SYNOPSIS: Holy Crap. Dick is dead. Died last night after band practice, and his bandmates, Zeke & Earl (Michael Abbott, Jr. & Andre Hyland), don’t want anybody finding out how. That’s too bad though, ‘cause news travels fast in small town Alabama, and these guys suck at covering their tracks. The authorities haven’t ID’d the body just yet, but Zeke’s wife (Virginia Newcomb) and his daughter are suspicious already.
I remember this playing at Sundance and thinking that it didn’t have a lot of buzz considering the polarizing response to Swiss Army Man. Figured everyone would be flocking to see it, but it sorta flew under the radar.
The Death of Dick Long opens September 24th.
