There's an old saying in the theater business that satire is what closes on Saturday, and it's pretty true in the movie business as well. Aside from DR. STRANGELOVE, there aren't a lot of satirical, black, or offbeat comedies that have become hits. Comedy in any sense is hard (as the saying goes, dying is easy...), but satirical or black comedy rely especially on the right tone; too timid and you miss the target, too much and it becomes obvious. Two completely different films, Lawrence Kasdan's I LOVE YOU TO DEATH, and Tom Stoppard's ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, attempt a satirical or blackly comic approach.
Kasdan's movie comes from a true story. In 1984, a woman named Frances Toto tried unsuccessfully to kill her husband Anthony for cheating on her. That in itself is not unusual. What makes it unusual is she tried four times, and failed each time. Not only that, but the husband forgave her, and they ended up staying together after she served four years in prison for the crime. Anybody looking at this film would probably agree this movie screams black comedy. The mystifying thing is why Kasdan, a director best known for humanistic dramas (THE BIG CHILL, THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST) was the man who chose the job. And while this isn't an entirely unsuccessful film, you're still wondering at the end.
In the movie, Anthony is now Joey (Kevin Kline), an Italian-American who owns a pizzaria in Tacoma, WA with his wife Rosalie (Tracy Ullman) and his mother-in-law Nadja (Joan Plowright). Also working there is Devo (River Phoenix), who has a crush on Rosalie, and who warns her Joey can't be trusted. Certainly, Joey can't be trusted with other women. Though he loves Rosalie, he's also a womanizer, whether on the job as a "plumber," or going out at bars (among his pickups is Phoebe Cates, Kline's real-life wife). Rosalie is oblivious to all of this, until Nadja and Devo eventually get her to see the truth. When she finally does, she decides she wants Joey dead.
How to kill him, though? Nadja and Rosalie decide to load up a pot of spaghetti with sleeping pills, but that strategy, er, backfires (he merely passes too much gas). Meanwhile, Devo tracks down a couple of hitmen, Harlan (William Hurt) and Marlon (Keanu Reeves), who each are missing a few tools from the shed, so to speak. They try to shoot him in the heart, but mess that up, at which point Rosalie gets upset - "I wanted you to kill him, not hurt him." But as in real life, everyone gets caught, and yet, Joey finds it in his heart to forgive Rosalie.
