Dead Man (1995)

  It took me three tries at three separate points in my life to be able to watch this movie all the way through.  The first two times were almost a decade ago and I found it to be inaccessible to the point of incomprehensibility. This was it's last chance before it went on the "sell back to Amazon for a penny" pile.  Once you get past the weirdness, and there is a lot of weirdness, it's a fantastic film.

Bill Blake (Johnny Depp) is a Cincinnati accountant who travels to the frontier after being offered a job by the John Dickinson Mining Company.  However, upon arrival, he discovers that the position had been filled in the interim and Mr. Dickinson (Robert Mitchum) is not the type of man to change his mind about a decision.  Broke and jobless, Bill wanders around town until he meets a friendly flower seller named Thel (Mili Avital) and spends the night with her until her ex, Charlie (Gabriel Byrne), shows up and shoots them both.  Blake shoots Charlie in return and then runs, collapsing into the woods.  He is saved by a giant American Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer) who is exiled from his tribe and who thinks Bill is English Romantic poet William Blake.  Once Bill is well enough to travel unassisted, he discovers that Charlie was John Dickinson's son and that he, Bill, is being hunted for a double murder.  Dickinson hires three killers (Lance Henrikson, Michael Wincott, and Eugene Byrd) to track Bill down and bring back his body.

Like I said, it's super-weird.  If you can let that float over you without focusing on it, you'll find that this is also a beautifully spiritual film about friendship and the journeys we take in life.  It also has an all-star cast list that, frankly, adds to the weirdness quotient by a lot.  We're talking Alfred Molina, John Hurt, Iggy Pop, and Billy Bob Thornton all in the same movie.  There's cannibalism, cross-dressing, poetry, and a grown man sleeping with a teddy bear.  It is that kind of movie.