Ghost Dog

"Ghost Dog" concerns a group of feckless, financially insolvent, cartoon-watching Mafia men who employ, and eventually try to rub out, a sensitive, bird-loving hit man who practices the code of the samurai warrior as espoused in an eighteenth-century text. On the one hand, this premise is certainly unique among recent films; on the other hand, it is the type of premise that becomes completely ridiculous if it is not handled by people who understand exactly what to do with it. Fortunately, "Ghost Dog" has those people, in writer-director Jim Jarmusch, star Forest Whitaker as the eponymous hit man, and RZA, founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, who seems to have done a lot more than just provide the soundtrack for this film. These three artists manage to take two quite disparate threads in deadly-warrior iconography — the samurai code and the omerta of the Mafia — and intertwine them in a film that proves both unexpectedly hilarious and oddly moving.

"Ghost Dog" needs a bravura directorial performance from Jarmusch for the film to work at all, and he delivers in spades. His direction shows a refreshing unwillingness to signal to the audience what emotion it should be feeling. In addition, he seems to understand that a story like this needs to be understated as much as possible, for overplaying the emotions would explode the audience's suspended disbelief. He does not linger over executions any more than jokes, refusing to milk sentimentality out of either. When the movie is funny, its humor grows gently out of the situation and does not seem grafted on by some outside agency; when the movie is tragic, we get the impression that tragedy is not in the director's mind at all, but in the minds of the characters. If all films about sensitive assassins were directed this well, then all films nominated for Academy Awards would be sensitive-assassin films.

Of course, to make a really good sensitive-assassin film, you need a really good sensitive assassin. Forest Whitaker as Ghost Dog delivers the best performance of a sensitive, animal-loving yet completely cold-blooded hit man since Alan Ladd's seminal performance in "This Gun for Hire." Whitaker does not think of his character as a god, as so many performers make the mistake of doing when they play phenomenally lethal hit men. He does not display hubris, but he is very confident in himself and his ability. Yet he lives in a rooftop shack with pigeons, and spends most of his time lazing about, meditating, working on his craft and reading excerpts from the samurai code reverently. Whitaker leads a humble, ascetic life, but his life is not a life of denial. To the contrary, Whitaker has found the way he wants to live his life, and it makes him content and deeply appreciative, both of fortune and misfortune. Ghost Dog is a complex character, and Whitaker has given full expression to all aspects of his personality in an amazing performance.

But the film would not quite be the same without RZA, either. For one thing, his fingerprints are all over it: the beat in the background during the first scene at the ice cream truck is taken from the RZA-produced Raekwon classic "Ice Cream," to take one example, and he has a cameo appearance immediately preceding the final scene. For another thing, the instrumental soundtrack he has produced for "Ghost Dog" evokes atmosphere almost effortlessly, and the new songs involving his Wu-Tang mates work within the plot to comment on it. On a deeper level, though, "Ghost Dog" seems like a Wu-Tang story, the movie the Wu would have made if they had made a movie: brooding, violent, occasionally riotous, and essentially thoughtful. Though Jarmusch authored the screenplay, it is hard to imagine him not having taken some cues from RZA's work during the writing.

Not everything in this film is perfect. Not one of the Italian characters is as well-developed as any of the black characters. Many of them seem as cartoony as their preferred choice of televisual viewing, and only Ghost Dog's direct employer is anything like a human being. This tends to deflate the impact of some of the scenes involving the Mafioso. Jarmusch's coda, satisfying as it is, is almost baldly predictable. And occasionally the director and soundtracker get a little too attached to playing long stretches of Wu-Tang songs, excellent as they are.

Yet none of this should detract from the unique achievement of this film. Jarmusch, Whitaker and RZA have managed to bring depth, hilarity, and profound consideration to a story that takes place on the outer edge of reality, and make it seem real enough for us all to take a lesson from. If you like Wu-Tang, if you are into contract killer movies, or if you simply enjoy subtle yet completely assured filmmaking, don't miss "Ghost Dog."

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