Review of The Mortician (2011) by Todd S — 07 Mar 2017

The Mortician (Method Man) is a lonely man with a scarred past, the kind of guy who keeps his mind occupied by throwing everything he is into his work. That all changes one night on the way home from work, when he witnesses a crime eerily similar to the one that made him the way he is.

The Mortician is content to try to ignore what he saw, until he comes to realize it directly involves the young man he is mentoring and that inaction could destroy another family. This film was a bit of a surprise to me, in that it wasn't the horror film I was expecting.

The preview made this film seem like it was horror, as do the title and cover art, not to mention it's on Lionsgate, which has become synonymous with B-movie horror in recent years. Perhaps the even bigger surprise was the star of the film, Method Man.

Every single time I have seen him in a film, he's playing some thug or gang banger, so I figured that he was just another one of these rappers that Hollywood uses when they need to fill that type of role, but I was wrong.

Despite the ridiculousness of a man who is nearly fifty years old still calling himself, Method Man, he can legitimately act. In fact, this film is quite dark and slow moving, even boring at times, but Method Man and the unique traits of his character, were the most interesting aspect of this film.

Maybe I'm rating the film a bit higher than I should be, then again, my expectations were extremely low. The Mortician isn't a horror film and it doesn't move at a quick enough pace to even be labeled a thriller.

The story is a decent one, albeit one that takes forever to get going, and the acting is much better than I would have expect from this cast. The Mortician wouldn't be my first choice by any means, but if you have the opportunity, I wouldn't skip it either.