I got a long list of underrated actors. For present day, there is Michael Keaton, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and Andy Garcia. This guys can fit in any genre without any problem. They do a lot to add to the atmosphere and all of them are not soaring high in the star sky these days.

The reason I went for Things To Do In Denver When You Are Dead  is Andy Garcia. He blew my mind out first in Godfather part 3. I went back and watched The Untouchables. Of course, with Connery and De Niro around, its impossible to watch Garcia, but he did stand out. I went out and tried to get most of his movies. Somehow I am convinced, like his Corleone character in Godfather part 3, he would be next in line after Pacino. But I guess, time proved me wrong. Still, I believe he is much better actor than what the market perceives him to be.

I find it hard to agree with most critics who call the scriptwriter and the director of this movie as Tarantino wannabe. I am beginning to think that Tarantino is overrated, simply because he is not as original as most make him out to be. Tarantino is a great director who was promising to be a hot director of nineties, only to deliver very few movies. I still believe that he will deliver a gem. But to consider him an original, and calling guys like Guy Ritchie as his wannabe is not particularly polite. Tarantino himself owes to the likes of Scorcese, Stone and countless of exploitation flicks that came out of the sixties and the seventies. Watch Scorcese's Mean Streets and you'll know what I mean.

So, would I be fair to say that you try not to recall Tarantino's flicks when you see this movie? If so, do it and find yourself enjoying Denver. I did. There are mob, hit men, gentle ex-mob trying to get out but got 'pulled back in'. Could be usual stuff, right? But I had rarely seen films that is so prone to gangster cliche and yet manage to evade it and look fresh.

Garcia plays Jimmy The Saint, the guy with gangster past, now running a visual will sort of thing, where dying people can record their advice on video to pass on to their young ones. Pretty grim, and sure enough Jimmy is not doing well on that business. His marker (loan) is now in mob boss The Man With The Plan's hand. This dude is on wheelchair and sucks oxygen from the straw. He is paralysed waist down and is played by Christopher Walken. Need I say more.

The Man gets Jimmy to do a 'piece of work, not action', to scare a guy who has run off with his son's girlfriend, which in turn turned the son into a lunatic and a child molester. Got it? Jimmy rounds up his old pals, who are in a way or another bunch of misfits. There is Pieces (Christopher Lloyd), a leper, Easy Wind (Bill Nun), Franchise (Willam Forsyth) and Critical Bill (Treat Williams. There are really one hell of a bunch of characters. The plan goes awry and The Man sends an assassin to kill them all in 48 hours. What happens till then, makes up the major part of the story. In between there is Jimmy's love interest, Dagney (Gabrielle Anwar) and partial narrator of what is going on played by Jack Warden.

Two things stand out in this movie. One, the performance and two, the script. It is really a casting coupe, getting names like Walken, Garcia, Lloyd, Forsyth and Warden. They really deliver, especially Garcia who can alternate between a smooth talking nice guy and an angry, violent ex-gangster very convincingly. If you are sure that you have seen the creepiest of Walken's characters, think again. I have never seen any of his performance like with The Man With The Plan.

The script is full of slangy lines. So slangy that I thought it was me, a Malaysian, who couldn't understand it. I went to MRQE and found out that the American critics themselves have problem with that.

It is a good movie and I can't say more. Be careful, it is a bit depressing. But there are still comedy and enough suspense filled moments that you may not be looking at your watch after all.