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Suicide king seeks audience with student
Mob tale proof of industry's ability to create with little corporate involvement (U-WIRE) TOWSON, Md. — "If we ever wanted another take, we'd just ask him," Jeremy Sisto says of first time film director Peter O'Fallon, whose Suicide Kings opened on April 17. The film is a dark, emotional, and, at times, wickedly funny character study of five young men played by Sisto, Henry Thomas, Jay Mohr, Johnny Galecki, and Sean Patrick Flanery) who kidnap mob boss Carlo Bartolucci (Christopher Walken). Filmed in just under a month for about $5 million, Suicide Kings (which also features Denis Leary and Laura San Giacomo) is proof that entertaining and thought-provoking films can be made with little studio interference. Adapted from Don Stanford's short story Kings, the film tells the tale of Max (Flanery), whose girlfriend is kidnapped. Hoping Bartolucci can use his connections to help him find his girlfriend, Max persuades his friends to help him kidnap the aging mob boss. In a phone interview, Jeremy Sisto (star of Clueless and White Squall) spoke to me about Suicide Kings and his other work from New York, where, he tells me, he is under a blanket, half hung over after a late night out and a long morning of interviews. "We went . . . somewhere," he strains as he laughs and tries to reply to my question about what he did last night. I figure that I'll do better just asking him about the movie. "It's interesting to watch," Sisto says of Kings. His character, T.K., stands out because he is one of the only characters who isn't physically harmed at the end of the film. T.K. is a young man who's under the delusion that he can be a doctor just because his father is a doctor, and who needs drugs to help him satisfy this fantasy. However, his and all the other characters' fantasies of control are destroyed midway through the film with a surprising betrayal by one of their own. Describing T.K., Sisto says, "in some ways, he feels the betrayal more deeply than anyone else." Getting the film together was a bit tough, but once Walken was on board, cast members were fighting for parts. They were all doing Walken impressions by the end, but Jay Mohr (Brett), having previously parodied Walken selling Skittles ("fun fruit flavor") on Saturday Night Live, had an unfair advantage. Would Jeremy Sisto ever consider behaving like the characters in Suicide Kings? "Hell, no," he replies quickly, assuring me that last night's adventure didn't blur his judgment too much. His first big break was Grand Canyon, in which he appeared when he was 16. He found the experience memorable— he "got laid for the first time." He's worked with everyone from director Ridley Scott (on White Squall) to Jon Bon Jovi (Moonlight & Valentino). Is Bon Jovi the consummate rock star off-camera? "He took me to a (Rolling) Stones concert," Sisto recounts. "He's actually a really nice guy, even though he's walking cheese." Sisto has many films in the pipeline, including Robert Towne's Without Limits, in which he will play Olympic athlete Frank Shorter next to Billy Crudup's Steve Prefontaine. "It was really tiring," Sisto says of Without Limits, "but it taught me how to run." Also ahead for Sisto is Bongwater, which he describes as a "warped comic book." In this film, he's one half of a gay couple alongside Newsradio's Andy Dick. "Andy is so fuckin' funny" Sisto says. In addition, Sisto will play an "elusive charmer" opposite Juliette Lewis in Men. "I break her heart," he explains. "It's kind of an extreme role." For now, though, Jeremy Sisto is very pleased with Suicide Kings. "I want people to see this movie", he says. |
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