Watch Killing Emmett Young For Free

To me, this movie is perfection.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This movie had some twists in it that kept you on your toes but other than that...it was a boring movie in my opinion. The main character Emmett, played by Scott Wolf was new to me. He didn't seem to act well and seemed like he just got out of college into acting school.What would you do if you were dying? Would you even go to all that trouble...? At least the DVD has some deleted footage. Besides that, I would only rent the movie if you want some unrealistic drama with little action and poor acting.Even the DVD & Movie Guide book rates the movie 3 out of 5 stars. No wonder why everyone is selling this movie cheap...it is because it doesn't capture your attention in a way you would remember it and make your jaw drop.

It was made in Philly, my hometown, and having Gabriel Byrne plus Tim Roth probably assured some decent acting, but as luck had it, Pam figured out the mistaken diagnosis before the film was 15 minutes old. Thus as I watched the rest of the film develop, I kept thinking in the back of my mind, 'does the Police Health & Welfare Plan rule out second opinions?' Man is told he is going to die soon from an illness, and he doesn't see if the doctor could be mistaken.I read the other reviews where some praise and some damn the film's open end style. In this case I think the writer(s) may simply have run out of inspiration or ideas. Do we want Emmett to go back to his girlfriend, or get involved with his co-worker? Who knows? We will let the viewers decide. What does it mean when Roth can't pull the trigger? Is this some sort of comment on his whole sexual life, or is he granting life in place of the one he took previously? The pose seems almost out of Michaelangelo's Creation on the ceiling at the Sistine. Is failed detective Roth giving the spark of life to the man he just wounded? The questions keep piling up. The serial rapist drives an SUV; so does Emmett? Coincidence? I have played solve the crime board games that were more enlightened than this series of questions.Pam, and another reviewer, commented on the phone conversation between Emmett and Roth. I'd driven past this intersection on April 4th of this year. The camera actually dresses up the area, and while there is a union hiring hall nearby, and the area is less than a mile from police headquarters, the site of two white men standing on that corner meant that it was either just after daylight or an optical illusion. In fact, I found the views of neighborhoods during foot chases eliminated any of the demographics of Philadelphia. The only Black people we see seem to be policemen.

There's little to praise and much to fault about "Killing Emmett Young" as it was entitled on cable. An old story about a cop with a terminal illness who hires a 3rd party hitman to kill him so he won't suffer and then learns the lab screwed up his blood test results and he's really not going to die...at least not from the disease. He tries desperately to call off the hit but the middleman is terminally unavailable. Etc. This uninspired indie seems to be little more than a paycheck for some good actors who dutifully go through the requisite motions. However, there is some interconnectedness between characters and subplots capable of whetting interest which may be sufficient to make this flick couch potato fodder. Worth Tivo'ing where the investment is minimal and the delete button is only a thumb away. (C+)

1st watched 3/28/2004 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Keith Snyder): Unique but slow moving drama about a detective who is only given one week to live and hires someone to kill him so that he won't go out slowly. Another story within this central theme, is the serial killer that he's tracking down but we really don't get shown much of this side of the story. Scott Wolf does a good job in his role as the detective but when a twist in the story occurs and he decides he doesn't want to be killed, the movie just doesn't go anywhere. A very flat performance by Tim Roth in the role of the assassin doesn't help the story much, and Gabriel Byrne really doesn't do much with his role as the person Wolf works thru to get the killing done. All in all this was a good try at a different kind of thriller but there's not enough heart going into the making of this. There were some obvious small things like editing mistakes that made it clear that not a lot work was put into finishing this but instead it was just put on the movie shelves as soon as it could.