Set in New Orleans, DOWN BY LAW begins as down-on-his-luck disc jockey Zack (Waits) tries to make some quick bucks by driving a stolen car across town. Unfortunately he gets pulled over by the police and is thrown into jail when a body is found in the car's trunk. In the meantime a pimp,
Jack (Lurie), has been set up by an enemy and fellow procurer, and he too is carted off by police and thrown into Orleans Parish Prison, where he becomes Zack's cellmate. Three may be a crowd, but soon they are joined in their small cell by Roberto (Benigni), a confused and likable Italian who
knows only a few phrases of English, which he keeps written in a pocket notebook. Eventually the three escape into the Louisiana bayous, where they're soon hungry, tired and lost.
Director-writer Jarmusch's characters are insignificant antiheroes adrift in an America that is both sad and beautiful. Jarmusch has a powerful visual sense, but he is weaker in the realm of content. The jazzy relationship between Lurie and Waits never quite clicks. As a result DOWN BY LAW merely
reiterates the ideas about people and American life that Jarmusch had already stated more richly in STRANGER THAN PARADISE. The only sign of life in the film is in Benigni, who works wonders. leave a comment