The film centers on the arrest, incarceration, and escape from jail of three men. It discards jailbreak film conventions by focusing on the interaction between the convicts rather than on the mechanics of the escape. A key element in the film is Robby Müller's slow-moving camerawork, which captures the architecture of New Orleans and the Louisianabayou to which the cellmates escape.
Plot summary
Three men, previously unknown to each other, are arrested in New Orleans and placed in the same cell. Both Zack (Waits), a disc jockey, and Jack (Lurie), a pimp, have been set up, neither having committed the crime for which they have been arrested. Their cellmate Bob (Benigni, in his first international role[3]), an Italian tourist who understands minimal English, was imprisoned for accidental manslaughter.
Zack and Jack soon come to blows and thereafter avoid speaking to each other. Bob has an irrepressible need for conversation. He hatches a plan to escape, and before long the three are on the run through the swamp surrounding the prison. Hopelessly lost and with a simmering hatred between Jack and Zack almost causing the party to split up, they are brought together by Bob's ability to provide food. The trio eventually chances across a house in the forest, the residence of Nicoletta (Braschi). Bob and Nicoletta instantly fall in love, and Bob decides to stay with her in the forest. Zack and Jack go their separate ways—an unspoken, begrudging friendship hanging between them as they part.
The film has an 88% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads, "Funny, original, and thoroughly cinematic, Down by Law represents writer-director Jim Jarmusch at his most ingratiating and evocative."[6] A reviewer for The New York Times called it a "fable of poetic density", with "extraordinary performances" by the three main actors.[7]Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of a possible four. He said Down By Law was overlong, but with an undercurrent of sly humor that balanced out the grim material; a "true original that kind of grows on you", and "an anthology of pulp images from the world of film noir."[8]
Soundtrack
The original soundtrack was written and performed by John Lurie, backed with a small jazz ensemble, released as LP on Crammed Discs (Made to Measure, Vol. 14, 1987)
Additional songs featured
"Crying", written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson, first lines performed by Tom Waits alone in a car as he imagines deejaying, just before he is stopped by police.[9]
"Jockey Full of Bourbon", written and performed by Tom Waits (from the album Rain Dogs, 1985), the whole song plays over otherwise soundless tracking shots of New Orleans neighbourhood streets.
"It's Raining", produced and allegedly written by Allen Toussaint, performed by Irma Thomas. In the breakfast scene Roberto chooses the song from a juke box and dances with Nicoletta to it.[10]
"Tango Till They're Sore", written and performed by Tom Waits (from Rain Dogs), final song.
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