Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Stars Christian Slater, Wes Bentley, Emmanuelle Vaugier | Written by Richard Dooling
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 85 minutes | Directed by Jeff Beesley
Based on the Stephen King novella of the same title, Dolan's Cadillac is a revenge drama that misses the mark on its source material by a mile. Sure, any pre-existing story should have artistic license from the screenwriter(s) added so it isn't exactly the same, and parts chopped in favour of going in new directions, but, for example, how would Steven Spielberg's Jaws have turned out if the love angle between Hooper and Ellen Brody from the Peter Benchley novel made it into the film? It's common sense that literature shouldn't always translate perfectly onto the screen, but you know you've got a problem when you miss out key elements from the text that makes for disjointed viewing. Hell, if I hadn't read Dolan's Cadillac before seeing this film, I wouldn't have actually understood what was going on half the time.
Vaugier plays a woman who witnesses a number of murders committed by Christian Slater's character, Mr. Dolan, a witty millionaire who is at the helm of various human trafficking operations, and rides in a formidable Cadillac that's bullet and bomb-proof and is basically wired up like a computer on wheels, with its own super-high-tech network system. After discovering her identity, Dolan hastily puts a target on her head before she can testify against him, and she soon ends up in the same place as those she saw killed — six feet under. It is then up to her vengeful husband (Bentley), a sixth-grade teacher who was reluctant about his wife's decision to testify, to go off the rails and hunt Dolan down.
The whole story comes full circle just like in the novella in a way that I cannot describe here without spoiling it, but let me just say that that is what was handled well and true to the source, but when the loving husband's world of happiness dissipates into a world of alcohol, pills and rage, the film seems to rush right to the climax, and a large chunk of the development of Bentley's character Robinson that is in the original story, is rather ham-handedly told in the form of a short montage that appears to be an oversight by the film-makers. The montage cuts out important details that make for the film actually being contrived in a way that would confuse anyone who hasn't read the Stephen King short. Literally, if I hadn't read it, the missing link would have stuck out like a sore thumb so much so that it's almost a giant hole in the plot.
The highlights of the film are the performances. Wes Bentley, who found fame in American Beauty, has a wonderful intensity about him; full of believable rage, like an animal. As for Slater, he's terrific as Dolan, a darkly humorous character, but at the same time ridden with absolute evil. He greatly embodies the unbalanced crime boss. Overall, Dolan's Cadillac is a very good, dramatic story and this is a somewhat decent adaptation, but I beg you to read the novella before you attempt to sit down with the movie.
EXTRAS ★★ Making of feature and a 20-minute B-roll.