Lansdown (2002) Movie Review

Jake Jorgensen (Paul Shields) is a defense attorney who hires ex-con Gustaf (D.W. Warren) to kill his cheating wife Lexi (Jennifer Carlson) in the black crime comedy Lansdown.

First he hires Gustaf to get the proof. It doesn’t take long for the evidence to arrive. While sitting in his car with Gustaf, Jake not only gets to see pictures of his wife’s infidelity with Pat (Chris Stewart), the construction worker but also hears her orgasmic moaning played on a mini cassette.

This makes him angry and he decides to hire the bumbling fool Gustaf to kill his wife who in turn refuses because it will violate his parole. Instead, Gustaf suggests that one of his buddies, the Jamaican talking gangster Gandhi (Patrick Louis) will do for $20,000 dollars. Gandhi in turn hires and imbecile ex-con named Hector (Chris Baran ) who brings along his moron buddy Benny (Marc Krinsky).

The more Jake tries to keep things quiet with the least amount of people involved the more things get out of hand. He is not only losing control of people and events but mentally he is about to experience a severe meltdown.

To complicate matters worse Benny forgets to look at the pictures of their intended victim Pat and so they kill the wrong guy and Jake refuses to pay them.

Other problems come up which leads to foolish decisions being made based on bad judgment and incompetence. Even the few smart characters in this movie seem to stumble and fall at every turn.

You have seen similar situations in numerous movies and Lansdown offers nothing new to add to what’s already been done many times before.

Although peppered with mildly funny “stupid is, stupid does” type jokes, the film drags its feet and needs major polish overall. There is enough raw elements to make something better out of it.

From the primitive uninteresting cinematography and mostly one dimensional acting to the simplistic directing and lackluster story, this film leaves a lot to be desired.

Writer/director Tom Zuber should of perhaps looked at some recent successful edgy movies and picked some pointers before going forward with this one.

Lansdown tries to be a film noir comedy of errors but ends up a lackluster mildly amusing film with an anti-climatic ending.