This is one of the strangest, and most likable movies I have everseen....and I have seen a lot, believe me. <br><br>Scene after scene was bizarre. I watched an amazement on the firstviewing, chuckling here and there. By the third viewing, I justlaughing out loud throughout much of it. The dark, subtle humor in hereis as good as I've ever seen on film....even though it may beclassified more of a gangster film than a comedy.<br><br>The humor mainly involved the gangsters, who were a bunch of old Mafiamen. A mob never looked this pathetic but they were characters. It wasespecially fun to see Henry Silva again, a man who used to be aneffective villain back on a lot of TV shows in the 1960s. He didn't saymuch in this movie but the looks on his face were priceless. Thefunniest guy, at least to me, was the mobster who sang and danced torap music!<br><br>The byplay between &quot;Ghost Dog,&quot; the hero of the movie playedwonderfully by Forest Whitaker, and the ice cream man, who only spokeFrench, also was fun and entertaining.<br><br>Almost every character in here was a strange, led by Whitaker who playsa modern-day hit-man who lives by the code of the ancient Samuraiwarriors. He also trains and communicates through carrier pigeons. Hey,I said this was a bizarre movie!<br><br>The violence was no-nonsense, however, nothing played for laughs andunlike Rambo-mentality, people who were shot at were hit and usuallykilled right away.<br><br>Along the way on this strange tale was a lesson or two on loyalty,racism, philosophies, kindness, communication, etc. How much of thisyou take seriously, and how much as a gag, is up to you, I guess. Themore I watch this, the more I see it as clever put-on comedy....yetsad. It's not to easy to describe but you wind up getting involved withthese odd people.<br><br>The movie changes rapidly as Whitaker does in this story. One minute heis a brutally bear-like hit-man and the next minute, the gentlest ofsouls.<br><br>A very unique film. The title looks a bit stupid and one you wouldeasily dismiss as moronic, but it is far from it. Great entertainment.

Jim Jarmusch is one of the few filmmakers in Hollywood able to makebodies of work that are challenging, thoughtful, and with a distinctivevoice. Like the Coen Brothers, it&#39;s hard to make his films accessibleto the public like many other films at the cineplexes, and that&#39;s partof the joy in watching a film such as Ghost Dog. It&#39;s such a strangekind of story, but it&#39;s a story that extremely well crafted, even whensome of the characters aren&#39;t developed enough past a certain point.While I can&#39;t really say that it&#39;s a great film, there are plenty ofgreat things about it.<br><br>Such as a pulsing, rhythmically engaging soundtrack (I&#39;m not a big fanof rap and hip-hop, but the artists on here are better than expected)with the RZA behind the seat. Delicate, finite cinematography by RobbyMueller (who&#39;s other superb collaboration with Jarmusch was on Down ByLaw). A performance from Forrest Whitaker, as the dedicated,un-hinged-from reality &#39;samurai&#39; known as Ghost Dog, which ranks amonghis best and shows in plain sight that he can carry an action film withpatience and cool. And the film also carries a fine sense of humor tomany scenes - the fact that these gangsters (one of which Dog&#39;s boss)watch more cartoons than take care of business is as funny as the waythey interact sometimes. While it tends to streak on parody, in thecharacters there&#39;s still the fascinating Jarmusch has in mixing thecultures. <br><br>It&#39;s a hard film to classify, for even though it&#39;s a martial-artsmovie, the only sight of a sword is used for practice and not ablood-bath in Kill Bill. It&#39;s a gangster movie, but every five minutesor so there&#39;s philosophical notes on the way of the samurai that seemsmore in place in a (good, thematically engaging) art film than a (good,shoot-em-up) Hollywood actioner. It&#39;s a movie about urban-life, yet theonly signs of Urbana are shown from a distance, where the only two whowill talk to Ghost Dog are a Haitian ice cream guy (who provides awonderfully weird scene on the roof with Ghost Dog), and a little girlwho likes to read. But it&#39;s this mixture that can keep a viewer on hisor her toes, especially once you realize the psychological state of thelead as much as his spiritual state.<br><br>Parts of the film might turn off one group, but the other parts of thefilm might keep the same group enthralled. In fact, it&#39;s as interestinga comparison to be made to Kill Bill (itself a hybrid) as it is in thespiritual and stylistic parent, Le Samourai by Melville. Like thosefilms, at the least, Jarmusch&#39;s film asks to be looked at more thanonce...Anyway, three cheers for Garry &quot;Nobody&quot; Farmer!

Men clinging to noble, outdated ideals in a world that no longer caresabout such things: that's the concept here. Whitaker shows amazingstrength and control in an antihero role that is necessarily secretiveand subdued. Silva and Tormey turn in solid performances -- Tormey isespecially poignant as the second-fiddle mafioso, torn between hisadmiration of Ghost Dog and his devotion to his own sempai (Silva).<br><br>The excellent soundtrack, courtesy of RZA, adds its own somber-yet-hipmood to the work. Jarmusch frames his characters on rooftops, on 'hoodbyways, in mansions, in the back rooms of Chinese restaurants, andeverywhere there is a feeling of the walls closing in, of things comingto an end, of finality. See it. It's a good movie.