Never Die Alone

Bomb Rating: 

Of various forms of torture that I would like to avoid, following David Arquette anywhere ranks right up there.

This film might appeal to people who sit on street corners waiting for squirrels to get run over by cars. It's just a litany of nastiness and ugliness that will probably be received warmly by ex-cons, wife-beaters and corporate executives.

Undoubtedly, many people remember the scene from "Pulp Fiction" where Uma Thurman's character snorts heroin thinking that it's cocaine, forcing John Travolta to drive her to Eric Stoltz's house for the needle to the heart. In this film, snorting heroin instead of coke is one of its big jokes. It's King David's (DMX) way of getting back at ex-girlfriends and generally making women do what he wants. When David gets really annoyed, he replaces the heroin with battery acid. It's really a laugh-a-minute.

David narrates this story from the grave, so at least the film has a happy ending. His story is intertwined with the story of Michael (Michael Ealy), who's largely responsible for David's death, and Paul (David Arquette), to whom David leaves his car and some tapes that detail his despicable exploits.

We flash back to the episodes of his life, which are stunningly dull. Mostly, it's a lot of watching the tattoo on DMX's back shift around as he has sex with various women. Perhaps the most insidious thing is that DMX narrates the whole thing, trying to provide some kind of retarded moral guidance or lack of moral guidance or whatever. I can't recall a single interesting thing he said the entire time.

Of various forms of torture that I would like to avoid, following David Arquette anywhere ranks right up there. The guy appears to have two distinct acting styles: hyperactive chimp and sedated chimp. Here, he's the sedated chimp, a writer creating a story from King David's tapes. He seems to have no clue that he's the only one who thinks they're interesting.

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