It\u2019s October 1995, and a year has passed since Quentin Tarantino\u2019s Pulp Fiction<\/em> broke box-office records, snagged a lot of awards, and made the ex-video store employee an in-demand, A-list filmmaker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pulp<\/em> also made crime stories profitable at the movies, and that fall saw an onslaught of them. David Fincher\u2019s gloomy police procedural Seven<\/em> made over $300 million worldwide, while Robert De Niro and Al Pacino finally faced off in Michael Mann\u2019s beloved heist flick Heat<\/em>. Novels from hardboiled legends Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty<\/em><\/a>), Walter Mosley (Devil in a Blue Dress<\/em><\/a>), and Richard Price (Clockers<\/em>) received big-screen adaptations. And twisty, twisted noirs The Usual Suspects<\/em> and To Die For<\/em> were being heavily buzzed as \u201cthe next Pulp Fiction<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the months and years progressed, up-and-coming filmmakers began dropping movies that were undeniably Tarantino-esque. From 2 Days in the Valley<\/em> to Truth or Consequences, N.M.<\/em>, they were usually scuzzy, black-comic shoot-\u2019em-ups<\/a> full of witty, too-cool criminals engaging in felonious activity that could go from eccentric to violent in a heartbeat. \u201cThey rattle with too much dialogue, too many plot twists, too-ugly furniture,\u201d Entertainment Weekly<\/em> critic Ty Burr wrote<\/a> in 1997. Even future auteurs Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket<\/em><\/a>) and the Wachowskis (Bound<\/em><\/a>) made their feature-film debuts helming hipstery, hardboiled flicks. (Of course, these are the ones that have received Criterion<\/a> releases<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n At some point, Bob and Harvey Weinstein decided that if people were gonna rip off movies from their star discovery, who already had other<\/a> projects<\/a> lined<\/a> up<\/a> for them around that time, they might as well get in on the action.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kinda released in December 1995, Things to Do in Denver When You\u2019re Dead<\/em> was one of the first Clinton-era neo-noirs to get slammed as a Pulp<\/em> clone. Andy Garcia stars as Jimmy \u201cThe Saint\u201d Tosnia, a smooth-talking, malt-drinking, Denver-based ex-con (\u201ca bitch\u2019s bastard\u201d is how Jack Warden\u2019s storytelling old-timer\/secret narrator describes him) trying to stay on the straight-and-narrow by running a video service where dying people leave parting words for their loved ones. He gets roped back into the life by his old boss, a quadriplegic kingpin only referred to as The Man with the Plan (Pulp<\/em> castmate Christopher Walken, stepping in for a rehab-bound James Caan). The Man wants Jimmy to scare a guy (a pre-The Good Wife<\/em> Josh Charles) out of marrying a former girlfriend of The Man\u2019s mentally disturbed son, who\u2019s been on a violent, child-molesting tear ever since they broke up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jimmy rounds up a stereotypical crew of old buddies for the job. There\u2019s the tattooed family man (William Forsythe), the old pro with health issues (Christopher Lloyd), the loose cannon (Treat Williams), and the Black guy (Bill Nunn). Of course, the plan goes horribly awry, prompting Jimmy to protect his friends when The Man goes on the warpath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Director Gary Fleder and screenwriter Scott Rosenberg, both old chums and Boston University alums, came up with Denver<\/em> as their first film. In an interview on the recently-released, Kino Lorber Blu-ray of Denver<\/em><\/a>, Fleder said Pulp<\/em> didn\u2019t influence the movie (filming took place the summer before Pulp<\/em> hit theaters). But he did admit that Tarantino\u2019s 1992 debut Reservoir Dogs<\/em> inspired him to make a cool crime caper of his own. Fleder even hired Dogs <\/em>scene-stealer Steve Buscemi to play a damn-near-superhuman assassin named \u2013 I shit you not \u2013 Mister Shhh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working with cinematographer Elliot Davis (who would later work on better Tarantino clones like Steven Soderbergh\u2019s Out of Sight<\/em>) and production designer Nelson Coates, Fleder floods Denver<\/em> with overstylized images, full of dark-but-colorfully lit characters populating shots obviously lifted from Edward Hopper paintings. While the movie is awesome to look at, the story itself is agonizingly derivative. Fleder and Rosenberg go overboard on trying to make Denver<\/em> as hip and brotastic as Dogs<\/em>. When the characters aren\u2019t throwing hella-dated racial epithets and homophobic slurs out there, they\u2019re speaking in insane underworld slang Rosenberg made up. The Man lets Jimmy know he and his pals are all on borrowed time by calling them \u201cbuckwheats,\u201d meaning they\u2019ll be killed in a way that also, and rather unnecessarily, involves anal assault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s almost like the actors banded together to give performances that elevate the morbid, problematic material. (Lloyd is the movie\u2019s MVP, going out like a true G.) Garcia is both a lover and a fighter in this, attempting to spark a doomed romance with an alluring lady named Dagney (Gabrielle Anwar \u2013 where the hell did she go?) while also serving as a protector of sorts for a strung-out hooker (uber-goth siren Fairuza Balk) with \u2013 everybody say it with me \u2013 a heart of gold. You can also catch a young Don Cheadle and Playboy<\/em> pinup-turned-anti-vaxxer Jenny McCarthy in bit roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As expected, the critics went all buckwheat on Denver<\/em>, obviously bringing up the Tarantino comparisons. Roger Ebert originally had good things to say when he saw it at Cannes earlier that year \u2013 but his opening-day review<\/a> was less-than-enthusiastic. \u201cIt\u2019s so overwritten it becomes an exercise in style rather than a story about its characters,\u201d he wrote, later adding, \u201cThe characters talk like they were raised on 1940s noir movies, and then given a quick course in advertising copywriting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bad press and mediocre test screenings made the Weinsteins give Denver<\/em> a tepid theatrical rollout, as the $8 million picture only grossed a meager $529,677, Fleder, who would go on to direct the hit studio thrillers Kiss the Girls<\/em> and Don\u2019t Say a Word<\/em>, admits on the Blu-ray that he regrets going into full-on tragedy mode in the second half, as bodies gruesomely pile up before a ridiculous-ass ending that seems like it came from Harvey Scissorhands during post-production. Fleder did return to the Weinsteins in 2001 to direct a troubled adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story Imposter<\/em>, which also bombed at the box office. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The dismal Denver<\/em> didn\u2019t stop Miramax from acquiring bullet-riddled quirkfests that weren\u2019t made by their star player. Remember, this is the same studio that almost<\/em> distributed that 1999 cult carbon copy (and your ex-boyfriend\u2019s favorite movie) The Boondock Saints <\/em>\u2013 until Weinstein realized that writer-director Troy Duffy was a bigger enfant terrible<\/em> than Tarantino and dropped the project. (The whole bloody affair was chronicled in the 2003 doc Overnight<\/em>.<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Things to Do in Denver When You\u2019re Dead<\/em> became another Miramax release that got dumped and discarded, it was a harbinger of things to come. As smart-ass, pop-culture-savvy, macho-as-fuck crime sagas clogged multiplexes and video stores for the rest of the decade, at least this film crashed, burned and left a nice-looking corpse first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Things to Do in Denver When You\u2019re Dead” is available to stream on Pluto TV<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/denver2-1024x576.jpg\")
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