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You Kill Me

2007 film by John Dahl

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ1528457
Source-derived summary

You Kill Me is 2007 crime comedy film directed by John Dahl, and starring Ben Kingsley, Téa Leoni, Luke Wilson and Dennis Farina.

The film was generally well received by critics, but performed only modestly at the box office. It marks the last feature film to date of director John Dahl, before he moved into television directing.

Plot

Frank Falenczyk is a hit man for his Polish mob family in Buffalo, New York. He has a drinking problem, as a result of which he messes up the critical assignment of preventing Eddie O'Leary, from a rival family, getting on a train bound for New York and organising the Chinese against them in town. As this has put the family business in peril, Frank's uncle Roman Krzeminski, head of the family, sends him to San Francisco to get on Alcoholics Anonymous with the order that if he doesn't participate in the AA programme, he will no longer work for the family.

At his first AA meeting, Falenczyk ducks out early and comes face-to-face with Dave, Roman's contact, who forces him to accept a job at a funeral parlour. Through this Frank meets Laurel Pearson, a quirky client he meets at the funeral home when she comes by to drop shoes off for her deceased stepfather. Frank and Laurel start to date. Calling in on his sponsor Tom as he collects tolls at a booth, Frank confesses his job, explaining that he wants to be free of his drinking problem because it's affecting his ability to kill effectively.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “You Kill Me” is 2007 film by John Dahl. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Kill, film and John, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2007—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2007-01-01, 2008-06-12—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Kill, film and John is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2007 film by John Dahl” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1528457. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “You Kill Me”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow You Kill Me primary sources, You Kill Me archive and Kill research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “You Kill Me”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from You Kill Me” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.