Death and the Compass (1992)

Director:

Alex Cox

Writers:

Jorge Luis Borges (story)
Alex Cox (writer)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

In a nightmare city inhabited only by criminals and police... a mystic detective finds a tool to catch a villainous outlaw.

Plot Keywords:

Ritual Murder | Flashback Sequence | Based On Short Story | Police Corruption | Foreign Language Adaptation

Cast

Peter Boyle	...	Erik Lonnrot
Miguel Sandoval	...	Treviranus
Christopher Eccleston	...	Alonso Zunz
Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez	...	Ms.Espinoza / Harlequin
Pedro Armendáriz Jr.	...	Blot
Alonso Echánove	...	Novalis
Eduardo López Rojas	...	Finnegan
Alex Cox	...	Commander Borges
Karl Braun	...	Sergeant
Gabriela Gurrola	...	Hooker / Harlequin
Ariane Pellicer	...	Natasha
Mario Iván Martínez	...	Hotel Manager
René Pereyra	...	Azevedo
Roberto Sosa	...	Drug Addict I
Bruno Bichir	...	Drug Addict II

Also Known As:

La muerte y la brújula (Mexico)

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

USA | Mexico | Japan

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.75 : 1

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

UK:15

Filming Locations:

Estudios Churubusco Azteca, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Company:

Estudios Churubusco Azteca S.A.

Quotes:

Lonnrot: It's possible, but it isn't interesting.
Treviranus: What has interesting got to do with anything? We're police officers. We deal in absolute reality.
Lonnrot: Reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but a hypothesis may not.

Movie Connections:

Version of Spiderweb (1975)

I thought it was just awful.

I liked Boyle's performance, but that's about the only positive thing I can say. Everything was overdone to the point of absurdity. Most of the actors spoke like you would expect your 9-year-old nephew to speak if he were pretending to be a jaded, stone-hearted cop, or an ultra-evil villain. The raspy voice-overs seemed amateurish to me. I could go buy a cheap synthesizer and crank out better opening music. And what's with the whole 1984ish police torture stuff? It was totally superfluous and had nothing to do with the actual events of the story. Cox added a lot of things, in fact, that he apparently thought would be really cool, but had nothing to do with the story. That's a big disappointment because one of the things that makes Borges' stories so good is his minimalism -- they are tightly bound, with no superfluous details. This movie is just the opposite. I stopped watching after the scene where Lonnrot is questioning the guy from the Yidische Zaitung, or thereabouts. I wasted $4 renting this, but at least I can get some satisfaction from writing this review and hopefully saving others from making the same mistake.