Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog

* * * (out of 4)

Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) is a zen assassin straight from the pages of a pulp comic book, complete with a collection of nifty gadgets and secret compartments stored in his secret hideaway. The dude lives on a rooftop, caring for his pigeons and training his mind and body in the way of the samurai.

Since this is a hipster Jim Jarmusch film, our Dog carries a CD case filled with music from The Rza (in addition to his arsenal of high powered pistols with laser sightings in his two black briefcases.) Not a bad thing to have cool theme music when you're walking through the streets of your hometown outer borough or cruising the streets en route to a routine hit. Like Neil Young's steel guitar riffs which blazed through Jarmusch's Dead Man, RZA's score and songs evoke a mood of hip-hop meets metaphysical dread crossed with an Asian flavor of meditative hums. It lends a great deal of weight to scenes which otherwise might have felt drawn out and boring, such as those long above mentioned scenes of Dog driving around.

The main thrust of the story follows Ghost Dog's allegiance to a sad sack mafioso, Louie (John Tormey), who saved his life a few years back. Now, Ghost Dog consider this fella his "Master" and carries out hits for him in order to pay back his debt. The jobs themselves are communicated via carrier pigeons. Carrier pigeons! How cool is that? The guy lives on a rooftop and his link with the outside world is carrier pigeons.

Problem is, a job goes wrong. Louie's boss is upset because his daughter was unexpectedly on the scene when Dog dispatched a rogue foot soldier. Now, the mafia wants to "eliminate the problem" and take out Ghost Dog, despite the fact that he's never made a mistake before and his only offense was not blowing away this girl who was at the wrong place and the wrong time, who happened to be the daughter of the mob kingpin. Regardless, these old time gangsters decide that Ghost Dog must go, despite Louie's protestations.

So we're launched into your standard revenge melodrama. The mobsters try to kill Ghost Dog by going to every rooftop in the outer borough, it seems, and offing any heavy set black men they find - they don't know where Ghost Dog lives, and neither does Louie. Of course, our man Dog sweeps down upon them like a phantom in the night and wreaks his vengeance, sparing only his "Master," the incredulous Louie.

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