Dead Man

Mistaken identity usually doesn't cause any hardships beyond a little embarrassment, but when its part of a series of unfortunate events your lucky to walk away with your life. With bad situations mounting on one man, Jim Jarmusch directs Johnny Depp in this wonderfully constructed story set in the old west, about one man who ends up at death door through a series of events that are none of his own making. Shot completely in black and white to give it the air of an older film, this movie draws you into the lifestyle of the west and how Easterners viewed the change in culture from one part of the country to the other.
After being accused of murder, and accidentally being shot in the process, William Blake is on the run for what little life he has left when he runs into an Indian who mistakes him for a dead English writer by the same name. Using authentic settings and realistic characters that seem to have stepped right out of history, the audience is taken on a trip that's memorable and leaves it's mark on your very being. From the moment that Blake is shot the story takes on an eeriness that gets creepier and creepier all the way to the very end. Along the way to his final demise the characters that Blake encounters enhance that feeling of creepiness as they become more and more the degenerates of society. The cast that Jarmusch gathered for this film range from Depp to Iggy Pop to John Hurt and Robert Mitchum, in one of his last roles before he died.
In the way of westerns this is not one of those shoot'em up action films, its more about character development and the interaction of those characters with others. Where the film is shot in black and white, there is a dreamlike air to the story and with that comes a believability that anything is possible. One of the underlying plotlines in the story is about mortality, and after watching this film you begin to wonder about your own mortality and what you'll leave behind.
One last thought, after watching this film I've got a whole picture in my head now when I hear the phrase "Dead Man Walking," considering Blake is going through most of the movie with a bullet lodged in his chest.