"I am no criminal. I am a good egg. We are. We are a good egg." 

—With this, the bouncing Roberto Benigni's "Bob" brings his two new friends together in Jim
Jarmusch's 1986 prison break film Down by Law.

Those familiar with Jim Jarmusch's films have come to expect and embrace the notion of the outsider. His characters, square pegs in round holes, consistently defy their societal norms and expectations. As defined and complex as their interests and personalities are, they are immanent sojourners in search of a secure homeland. From the black samurai hit man in Ghost Dog to the foreign tourists visiting Memphis in Mystery Train to the hunted accountant in Dead Man, Jarmusch's films are about opposites and reversals; characters who don't belong, awkwardly trying to find their place. Jarmusch consistently mines great comedy in these situations, particularly when it comes to race. One need look no further than Coffee and Cigarettes to find Bill Murray getting health tips in a diner from Wu Tang's RZA and GZA.  Even with his more dramatic work (i.e., Stranger than Paradise, Broken Flowers, The Limits of Control), Jarmusch continues to explore and relate to the transients of society.  In Down by Law, we are introduced to three such characters.

A contract killer (Whitaker), who lives his life in accordance with the “Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai,” becomes targeted by his mob bosses after a job goes wrong, leaving a witness behind.

Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers, Night on Earth) creates a film unlike any other with Ghost Dog. He manages to blend the coda of Kurisowa’s films about Feudal Japan with the characters and locales of an American mobster movie. In concept it may sound like the potential for a trainwreck, but in the hands of one of the leaders in independent cinema, it makes for truly original filmmaking. Jarmusch does a great job of utilizing this mixture of genres, not relying on cookie-cutter stereotypes, but rather, finding a way to flip everything on its head. The result is colorful characters that exist in a reality that is fresh and not found anywhere else.