The Spoils Before Dying
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
Improbably, the sequel to IFC’s The Spoils of Babylon is better than the original: the same faux literary miniseries format (Eric Jonrosh, the drunken auteur author, introduces each episode from a wine drenched armchair) applied to a noir detective story. Matt Bomer is Rock Banyon, a jazz pianist detective in 1962 Los Angeles framed for the murders of his former lover and a scientist; Maya Rudolph, Michael Sheen, and a glory seeking Will Ferrell as-Jonrosh populate the parody.
Where Babylon parodied TV miniseries, Dying parodies noir: the hardboiled narration is deliberately overcooked, the jazz scenes are aggressively absurd, and the mystery resolves the only way a fake serious noir can. Six half hour episodes, the perfect dosage for a joke this concentrated. The cast’s commitment to playing it straight while the material goes sideways is the whole show.
Verdict: Watch it in one sitting. A beautiful, stupid crime poem.
