The Death and Life of Bobby Z

Plot

Don Huertero (Joaquim de Almeida) is a Mexican drug lord. His daughter committed suicide because a drug dealer known as Bobby Z broke her heart. Consequently, Don Huertero is out for vengeance.

In trepidation Bobby Z seeks shelter in an American embassy. From there he is handed over to federal agent Tad Gruzsa (Laurence Fishburne).

In order to get hold of Bobby Z after all, Don Huertero takes a colleague of Tad Gruzsa as hostage and proposes an exchange.

Bobby Z knows Don Huertero won't rest until he believes him dead. Being worried sick, he bribes Tad Gruzsa. Now Tad Gruzsa conceives a plan to deceive Don Huertero. He wants to make Don Huertero believe Bobby Z was dead without harming the real Bobby Z.

When the exchange is supposed to take place, Tad Gruzsa replaces Bobby Z. In his stead the clueless doppelgänger Tim Kearney (Paul Walker) crosses the border. During the exchange Tad Gruzsa incites a gunfight and tries to shoot the doppelgänger dead.

Even so, Tim Kearney scarcely survives. But Tad Gruzsa keeps on trying to kill him. But he fails time after time. Despite all his efforts it is the real Bobby Z who is taken down. Tim Kearney on the other hand finds love (Elizabeth, played by Olivia Wilde as a kind of it girl).

Structure

The films starts by introducing "the legend of Bobby Z", an immensely successful and famous marijuana trafficker, yacht owner and surfer, described ecstatically as an entity of almost mythical proportions by an old man, representing the contemporary folklore of the Gold Coast of Baja California.

The film then goes on to describe the film's hero Tim Kearney, played by male leading actor Paul Walker. Exposition flashbacks and narrative by the relatively hostile FBI agents serve to portray Kearney as a somewhat reckless and uncontrollable, yet also likeable and brave character, who ends up in prison because of his former qualities.

When Kearney accepts Tad Gruzsa's offer, the audience doesn't know anything more than he does. Thus the film continues, following Tim Kearny as he successively collects information. The audience is never ahead of him. This and the fact that a great deal of the story has already happened before the hero gets involved, require flashbacks galore. As a result, the structure is highly interlaced.

The film ends with a few concluding remarks by the same old man of the Gold Coast that appeared in the introduction.

Cast

Novel

The film is based on a 1997 novel of the same name by Don Winslow. The novel was positively reviewed by several newspapers.

Reception

The Death and Life of Bobby Z holds a 40% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 5 counted reviews as of 8 July 2010. In an interview to the Portuguese channel SIC, Paul Walker called it a "bad movie".