Kiss of Death (1995) | Muscles and Missed Potential

Season 21, Episode 4

We’re headed back to the grimy streets of mid-90s New York this week, but instead of a tight crime drama, we’ve got ourselves a curious cinematic time capsule that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself. Kiss of Death (1995), directed by Barbet Schroeder, stars David Caruso fresh off his NYPD Blue heat, Samuel L. Jackson doing what he does best, and Nicolas Cage bringing… well, a lot. Like, bench-pressing-in-a-jail-cell-with-a-metal-grill levels of a lot.

So why doesn’t this movie work?

We try to piece together how a film with this cast and this much gritty atmosphere could still fall flat. Is the problem Caruso’s Jimmy Kilmartin, a protagonist who never really drives the story? Is the film more interested in creating mood than in tightening its plot? Or maybe it’s just that Kiss of Death feels like it’s caught between a prestige crime flick and a B-movie bruiser — and doesn’t quite commit to either.

That’s not to say there’s nothing to enjoy here. Far from it. Cage, as the unpredictable and juiced-up Little Junior Brown, practically lifts the film on his back (and that’s not just because he’s benching erotic dancers). He’s unhinged in the most specific and calculated ways, and if you’re into watching Cage tap into early shades of Face/Off madness, this is worth a look.

We also talk about Caruso’s leap from television to film, the what-could-have-been of his movie career, and Ving Rhames’ brief but memorable role that includes an oddly intense hatred of the color red. Yes, really.

In the end, Kiss of Death may be more interesting as a snapshot of where mid-90s Hollywood thought crime thrillers were headed than as a fully satisfying film. But it’s exactly the kind of movie we love to revisit—ambitious, flawed, and filled with performances that make you go, “Wait, is that…?”

Check out the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or watch it on YouTube. And if you haven’t seen Kiss of Death, it might be worth dusting off the VHS—or at least pulling it up on streaming—to see one of Cage’s more underrated performances and witness Caruso’s brief, shining moment on the big screen.

Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | More Links