10 Glorious Deaths In Forgettable Films
6. Bobby Peru Loses His Head (Wild At Heart)
A neo-noir crime black comedy, starring Willem Defoe, Nicolas Cage and Laura Dean, on a list of forgettable films?
Blasphemy.
Yet, Wild At Heart managed to somehow fall flat, even with David Lynch steering the ship. When 80 people walk out of your first test screening and 100 people in the next, the writing must have been on the wall.
If there's one mesmerising saving grace in this misjudged flop, it's the sudden death of one of its principal cast.
In a real comedy of errors moment, Bobby Peru (Defoe) reveals he has been sent to kill Sailor (Cage) by the mother (Diana Laid) of his girlfriend (Dean) midway through a calamitous robbery, only to accidentally blow his own brains out, falling on his shotgun when a deputy sheriff opens fire on the two.
The image of the remains of Peru's head rolling along the floor, stocking disguise and all, is a sight to behold.
As a whole, the film may not have earned much praise or been cemented in the legacies of the stars involved - it could also be seen as a waste of the seismic talent of Defoe to kill him off so quickly - but this superb unforeseen self-destruction of a hired hitman is worth more than a minute of your time.