D.O.A.
Tags: neo noir, murder

Plot synopsis:
A man staggers into the police station to report a murder. When the desk sergeant asks who was murdered, he answers: "I was."
That man is Professor Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid), who then sits down to video-tape his account.
Thirty-six hours previously, Cornell is on campus. He is a college professor, was once a promising writer, made his name and is secure in his tenure, but he has spent the last four years going through the motions and playing it safe. "Publish or perish" is the contrasting rule of university politics and Cornell helps his friend Hal Petersham (Daniel Stern) with his first book.
While he is in his office, a promising student, Nick Lang (Robert Knepper), jumps off a building right outside his office in an apparent suicide. This, coupled with the depressing Christmas season, unseasonably hot weather and the divorce papers given to him by his wife Gail (Jane Kaczmarek) leads Cornell to seek out the local bars for a night of drinking. There he meets admiring student Sydney Fuller (Meg Ryan) and they proceed to get drunk.
The next morning, Cornell, feeling his sickness is more than just a hangover, stops by the campus medical clinic for a checkup. After running some tests, they discover that he has been poisoned and has 36 hours to live. An incredulous Cornell staggers out to try to make sense of it all.
Aided by Fuller, whom he kidnaps by super-gluing himself to her arm, he attempts to recreate the events of the previous night hoping to discover who could have murdered him. The list of suspects includes his wife, who is also the victim of a murder, which the police make half-hearted efforts to pin on Cornell.
It is learned that Lang was not a suicide but was also murdered. Cornell also suspects Lang's mentor Mrs. Fitzwaring (Charlotte Rampling), Bernard (Christopher Neame) the Fitzwarings' chauffeur and Graham Corey (Jay Patterson), a jealous co-worker.
In the end, at the police station, Cornell has solved the crime. His friend Hal had read and was so impressed by Nick Lang's manuscript that he decided to kill Nick and steal the novel for himself. However, this involved killing anyone who knew that Nick was the original author, including Dexter. After a scuffle, Dexter shoots Hal who then falls out his office window. Dexter resigns himself to his fate.

Review: His search for the suspect is further complicated by the fact that he is being sought by the police on phony charges of killing .Mediocre remake of the 1949 Noir film that contains thrills , suspense , a complex intrigue and plot twists .
Passable acting by Dennis Quaid as a teacher becomes embroiled in a series of murders involving people around him and supported by Meg Ryan as a likable but reluctant student , both of whom married after shooting , though nowadays are separated themselves.
Colorful cinematography throughout the story , the color in the film begins to drain to monochrome, thus representing the central character's deteriorating health as the poison steadily takes it's toll until it is in black and white as in the opening - presumably showing the flashback catching up to the current time-line of the story .
Fast-paced and nifty remake of the 1949 classic about a man being poisoned with time his factor as he tries to solve his own murder.
The opening dialogue is clever, and the viewer is carried along by a sharp screenplay and a real, original film noir feel,.
The original "D.O.A." is undoubtedly a better film, but that does not mean this film is bad.The film stars Dennis Quaid in one of his early roles, when he was first becoming really famous, after "The Right Stuff" made him a star, and a very lovely looking Meg Ryan, when she was still now quite famous.This is more of an "update" of the 1950 film, rather than a remake, since the setting is different and the characters too, are different.
Charlotte Rampling is fine too in a supporting role.The entire cast is top notch; The film is stylish, with a quick pace that keeps you guessing until the end.
The script mistakes ludicrousness for cleverness; the directors peculiarly seem to think they're making a pop video rather than a film; and Dennis Quaid puts on a weird grin and raises his eyebrows maniacally as if he's auditioning as a Jack Nicholson impersonator.
It's good for a laugh but, since that wasn't the original intention, it's hard to rate this as a worthwhile film.English lecturer Dexter Cornell (Quaid) is a bitter, bored shell of a man.
as, aided by student Sydney Fuller (Meg Ryan), he desperately attempts to solve his own "murder".It's such a good idea that one can hardly imagine how it could fail.
The next morning he wakes up to find himself in the dorm room of one of his students, a freshman named Syd (Meg Ryan).He feels worse than a  hangover, goes to the doctor and learns that he has been poisoned, it is irreversible, and he has 24-48 hours to live.
He doesn't have much time to find out who killed him, and there are sub-plots, motives, relationships and surprises at every turn, although everything makes sense at the end.
But the pacing picks up quickly, with just the right amount of exposition in between action segments.There are no explicit sexual encounters, although there is violence and some bad language.This is a writer's movie, and is best appreciated by those who have a sense of humor about their own success or failure.
The main plot is a man is poisoned and he has to solve his own murder , neat eh?!Dennis Quaid is the man who is "D.O.A"(in other words Dead On Arrival).He finds help with his friends, but everyone is now a suspect!!Dennis's character has several hours to find out who poisoned him.
You can see two other big stars in Meg Ryan(City Of Angels,Courage Under Fire) and Daniel Stern(Home Alone, Very Bad Things,Bushwhacked) in supporting roles in this awesome ,cool remake of a classic movie!!.
With Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan on fine, romantic form Quaid is the English professor who walks into a police station and reports a murder: his own.
Rudolph Maté's film from 1950 is given a revamp for the 80's, Dexter Cornell(Dennis Quaid) is a university lecturer who used to have a successful writing career, but thats now gone down the tubes along with his marriage.
Dexter after being told he has less than 48hrs to live, decides to trace back his steps with the help of one of his students Sydney Fuller(Meg Ryan), but they find they have many obstacles in their way.The film begins promisingly in black and white, as Dexter staggers in the rain towards the local police station where he wishes to report a murder...his own, but the Huey lewis style 80's beat that accompanies this scene only serves to remove any sense of tension and tells the viewer that this is going to be pretty bad, its only a question of how bad?
Dennis Quaid,(Dexter Cornell), was a professor who loved his wife and finally found out she was having an affair with one of his students.
Dexter gets involved with Meg Ryan(Sydney Fuller), who was a student in his college class and at the same time  had a big crush on him and wound up having a one night stand and in some ways loved him deeply.
If you like Dennis Quaid and love Meg Ryan you will enjoy viewing this film, Meg gave an outstanding performance and kept this picture worth watching!.
It stars Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Daniel Stern, Charlotte Rampling, Jane Kaczmarek and Christopher Neame.
Music is by Chaz Jankel and cinematography by Yuri Neyman.A loose remake of the 1950 film noir of the same name, the story finds Professor Dexter Cornell (Quaid) staggering into a police station proclaiming that he is dying because someone has poisoned him.
Told in flashback by Cornell, we see the events that led up to the point he was poisoned, but not who did it, and then track the frantic Professor as he tries to solve the who done it mystery before he keels over and dies.Not as bad as the poor box office returns suggest it is, D.O.A. is still very much a frustratingly shaky experience.
While elsewhere Stern and Rampling provide good characterisations, even if as written the roles are too small given the importance the characters have to the plot shenanigans.A bit over cooked on the page, and basically a race against time thriller dressed up in neo-noir clothing, D.O.A. is still none the less worthy of a viewing.
Okay it is a somewhat 1980s type film with an intrusive pop soundtrack in places but a great many ( Too many ) films from that period suffered the same way , it`s by know means as bad or as shallow as something like THE FAST AND FURIOUS from years later 
Other similarities turn out to be that if you let the film take you where it takes you, it is a fast-pace and highly enjoyable thriller with very clever dialog, interesting and menacing characters, and unusual situations.
Like all really great dramas, you will discover as the film progresses that your original assumptions about good and bad are not quite the way things work out exactly.
As this film opens Professor Dexter Cornell enters a police station to report a murder...
As he sits down to tell his story to the police the action jumps back thirty six hours.Cornell is a Lecturer and novelist although he hasn't written a book in for years and can't be bothered to read a work written by a keen student.
He is determined to discover who poisoned him and why.This isn't really a remake of the 1949 film as it only takes the central premise of that film; here we get an entirely set of characters and motives.
The opening is a great hook then the story takes its time getting to the point where Cornell discovers he was poisoned.
Dennis Quaid is impressive as the doomed Professor Cornell and Meg Ryan is fun as Sydney; the rest of the cast is solid too.
College English professor Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid) stumbles out of the rain into a police station claiming that he has been murdered.
He goes to the clinic where he's told that he's been poisoned with a maximum of 48 hours to live.The original has perhaps the best noir opening ever.
I really liked that even though the premise was the same (man gets poisoned, man goes to police to tell the story, movie unfolds in a flashback), I did not feel like I was watching the original movie after about the first 10 minutes of the film.
Now the original is a noir classic, This movie though I would not say is a classic in the NEO NOIR category, it definitely is worth a watch.Quaid gives a slightly manacle performance that is fun to watch, and he does a pretty good job of holding the movie together.
I think when Quaid and Ryan were married and their chemistry on screen is terrific in a terrific story remade from an even better earlier film from the 40's, I understand.
This DOA uses a contemporary theme of a cheating wife, questionable associates and scheming students to create a web of suspects the main character must weed through.The film moves a mile-a-minute, with people getting knocked over the head with things, people chasing through tar pits, and of course a short episode at the compulsory carnival.
Great story and great lead actors (Quaid and Ryan) but the movie suffers from bad directing,bad screenplay and bad script.The lead actors do their part but could not save the movie at all.Too bad because this could have been a good 80's style Hitchcock suspense/mystery/thriller.Ryan looked so young and fresh in this one though.An ok look for big Ryan fans......
Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan are the main leads of the movie and like always they are great together.
On a positive note, Daniel Stern was good in a serious role.The movie tries to be noir, or at least an homage to film-noir, by using black & white images and certain camera-positioning (strangly only at the beginning and ending of the movie and not the movie entirely.) but also with its 'mysterious' story and characters.
After all, the movie is also a remake of a real classic film-noir from 1950, by the same title.
(The opener apparently references the film noir classic of the same title, D.O.A., 1949-1950, but the 1988 offering is not a remake) Prof Dexter Cornell, played by Dennis Quaid, stumbles into a police station to report a murder.
Being an English professor is sort of like flying, it's one of the safest ways to travel.The rest of the movie is a flashback entirely from Cornell's point of view in which the events leading up to his entry into the police precinct are retraced, which turns out to be two days.
When the pieces start falling into place, they are like nothing you would expect.The film moves a mile-a-minute, with people getting knocked over the head with things, people chasing through tar pits, and of course a short episode at the compulsory carnival.
This time out Dennis Quaid plays a teacher going through the worse period of his life as he can't get a book published and his wife is leaving him but things get even darker after being poisoned and learning that he's got less than 24-hours to life.
In that time he decides to try and track down the person or persons who poisoned him along with the help of one of his students (Meg Ryan).
The original film is one of the all-time great classics but many movies were getting remade during the 80s and many of them were quite good (THE THING, THE FLY, THE BLOB) but others were less than memorable and that's where D.O.A. falls.
Many people considered this one of the worst films of the years and it's hard to try and fight that because this is one pretty lousy movie from start to finish.
This is really one of those mysteries that's quite annoying because everyone you meet is a red herring and not once did I ever feel as if the screenwriters had a good idea as to where they were going because the entire storyline just seemed like one big mess and in the end they could have had anyone be the killer and it wouldn't have made any less sense than someone else.
This remake of the 1950 classic film noir of the same name cleverly utilises a combination of old and new elements to create an entertaining thriller which, although designed for 1980s moviegoers, still has a strong appeal to contemporary audiences.Fans of the original will particularly appreciate the fact that the basic premise of the story has been retained and will also enjoy the black and white sequences at the beginning and end of the movie which provide a stylish homage to Rudolph Mate's film.
Those not familiar with the original will also find it an enjoyable mystery which involves murder, jealousy, campus politics and a very unusual motive for murder.University professor Dexter (Dex) Cornell (Dennis Quaid) goes into a police station to report his own murder and as his story is recorded on video tape, it becomes clear that he's been poisoned with a slow acting substance which left him with less than 48 hours to track down his killer and to find out why anyone would want to murder him.Dex had written some successful novels but when writer's block set in, he'd become disillusioned and progressively lost interest in what he was doing.
The use of high and low angle shots, close-ups and tilted camera angles are also especially successful as they reflect the sense of chaos and confusion which prevails through certain passages of the action.This is a film which features good performances from Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan and Charlotte Rampling and has a premise which gives its story a natural sense of pace and urgency.
Upholstered over the simple frame of the original film: a bloody, violent wife murder sub-plot; a nail gun attack in the dark; a car wreck into a nasty, burbling, all-engulfing slime pit with everyone scrambling to escape; a new motive for the protagonists murder, something or other about professional jealousy among writers (talk about your self-referring script); and a diffuse, wha-happen new arty ending.
Dennis Quaid/Meg Ryan film 3 years before they married, good suspense film I rate 6 or 7 of 10..
D.O.A. is a remake of the 1949 film of the same title that shares the same premise but otherwise have a different story and characters.
It stars Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, and Charlotte Rampling.
"They didn't kill me; I was dead already," is the statement uttered by Dexter Cornell, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has been poisoned by a slow-acting toxin and who has twenty- four hours to track down his killers before he ceases to exist.
Things keep going from bad to worse when, after an all-night drinking binge, Dex discovers that he has been slipped a poison that will kill him within 24 hours.
Teaming up with the adoring Sydney, Dex tries to track down the person who poisoned him while dodging the cops, since he happens to be a prime murder suspect.It's not on the same level as the original, but this updated version still manages a few enjoyable twists, as it is a witty and literate thriller, with a lot of irony to cut the violence.
Quaid is convincing as the chain-smoking English professor, Ryan is true blue as the stalwart coed and Rampling looks capable of keeping her victims alive just to toy with them.In summary, "film noir on campus" idea works surprisingly well as it has enough inventive moments to make it interesting..
If the film makers wanted a sex scene they should have put it earlier in the movie before the main character (Dexter played by Dennis Quaid found he's about to die and that he's accused of a crime.
Early in the movie Dexter isn't living life to the fullest so he's not interested in sleeping with Meg Ryan.
The first two minutes are basically the only good parts in the film, when a college English professor, Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid) stumbles into a police station to report his own murder.
("No more than forty-eight!") Using the last days of his life, Dexter tries to hunt down his killer with the help of the flirtatious student Sydney (Meg Ryan), who doesn't seem like she has a purpose in the film nearly as much as Harrison Ford's French companion did in "Frantic."Dexter recalls what he found out to the police, what all happened, where the bloody path of murder led him.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS --I love Dennis Quaid and I like Meg Ryan.
The original D.O.A. had one of the all-time classic premises of Film Noir: man investigates his own murder after he is poisoned.
There's also the addition of Meg Ryan as occasional helper and romantic interest, something which weakens the notion in the original where the doomed hero must figure out everything for himself.The film was directed by Max Headroom creators/directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, helmers a little later of the justifiably excoriated Super Mario Brothers: The Movie.
In establishing that Quaid's character is someone who could live or die and you couldn't care less either way.Learning form other reviewers that the denouement is a colossal letdown comes as no surprise; I couldn't say myself because I couldn't be bothered to watch it through.Meg Ryan is gorgeous and Quaid gives a solid performance, but apart from that it is hard to find much good to say about this..
But the plot rattles along at too great a pace, leading to a dramatic twist not half way through, when the character learns that he has been poisoned and has only 1-2 days to live.
Dennis Quaid, in the lead role, doesn't convince either as a burnt out professor or as a man who is destined to die: Meg Ryan is, as often, ditzy and annoying.