MicroCinema Scene

It took a little while to get into Die and Let Live. It has everything going for it—a punchy opening set-up and a great title sequence—but for the first twenty or so minutes, as main characters Smalls (Zane Crosby) and Benny (Josh Lively) hang out around a coffee-shop, speaking in highly-contrived Kevin Smith-approved youth-speak (with a constant wink of ironic delivery), it took every ounce of will-power not to turn it off. These two guys, sitting around, pining over girls and avoiding meathead boyfriends—it was tedious and wreaked of trying too hard to be clever. If there is one trend young filmmakers need to stop, it’s this shit.

But, once were passed this scene, Die and Let Live really becomes a wholly entertaining film that actually achieve (real) clever spurts of hilarity intermingles among the above-the-board gore. Small and Benny, once they leave the coffee-shop, set up a party at Smalls’ mom’s office in the middle of nowhere, where, at this same time, a zombie outbreak of sorts is going on, slowly turning the soiree into a bloodbath. The humor of these two as they try to maintain some semblance of control in the face of this attack is on the level with that of Shaun of the Dead, with a real rapport and chemistry between the two leads, dolphin encrusted necklaces and all. What originally started as a general hate towards them really does morph into a real likeability.

Yes, at times it tries to be too much of a Dude, Where’s My Zombie? for it’s own good, but, for the most part, this is easily overlooked because these guys do such a good job at playing stupid, which is needed to keep the stupid jokes rolling at a rapid-fire pace. With a little bit of editing when it comes to writing dialog, (especially when it’s two guys sitting around talking about relationships—that is so overdone and usually done badly in most microcinema), screenwriters Channell, Lively and Crosby could have a future cult classic in one of their upcoming films. That promise is there, it just needs to be distilled. Die and Let Live is a great start, and, even with those criticisms, they’re still better on all levels than 90% of their peers, so that’s something.

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