Before Oscars Glory, One of the 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' Directors Made a Coens-Esque Crime Caper With a Cringe-Inducing Twist

2 months ago 10

Rommie Analytics

A mere three years before writer/director Daniel Scheinert made Best Picture history with Everything Everywhere All At Once (an honor shared with his co-writer and director Daniel Kwan), he delivered one of the most surprising and cringe-inducing black comedies in recent memory with The Death of Dick Long. The film sees friends Dick (Daniel Scheinert), Zeke (Michael Abbott Jr.), and Earl (Andre Hyland) having a grand time hanging out at late-night "band practice" before something dangerous happens off-screen, and suddenly we see Zeke and Earl dumping Dick’s body off outside a hospital. He doesn’t make it, triggering investigations, rumors, and gradually revealed secrets until the movie gets to the shocking truth of what happened on that drunken night. The Death of Dick Long feels explicitly Coen-esque (and Scheinert explicitly cites their work as inspiration), luring audiences into a feeling that they’re in familiar territory with an increasingly serious-feeling criminal yarn. When the real explanation emerges, however, it’s a wildly uncomfortable twist, rendered even more shocking by the serious tension that blankets the rest of the movie.

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