Neil Jordan’s Philip Marlowe: Senior Citizen Edition, largely ignored on release (indifferently received when not), with Liam Neeson as the classic P.I. working a case in late-‘30s L.A. (filmed in Spain and missing harsh L.A. glare & atmosphere*), shoots for world-weary, settles for weary. Yet Jordan, an awfully talented fellow, locates sly, effective moments in a story (not by Raymond Chandler BTW) that centers on a dicey mother/daughter relationship (Jessica Lange/Diane Kruger); a missing Latin Lover (reported dead); a hidden cache of cocaine; and the usual crew of unhelpful suspects & ambivalent police. (What, no water rights?) Jordan jumps right into things, starting with the traditional office visit for client & detective, cutting to the chase as if he were filming a sequel and we were already up to speed. (Hint: assuming you’re not up to speed, try repeating the first 30 or forty minutes before going on. The film will actually feel 30 minutes shorter.) Fortunately, both Neeson and the film grow on you. And if Liam at 70 is no longer the first guy you’d call to go on a chase, he's still a powerful physical presence on screen. Those ham hock hands really pack a punch. As does the film, in its limited way.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: More underrated P.I. work from Neeson in A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES/’04 https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-walk-among-tombstones-2014.html OR: *Robert Altman’s controversial, post-modern take on Chandler, with contemporary L.A. atmosphere to spare and a contemporary Marlowe in Elliot Gould. It’s also centered on a plot keyed to a misreported dead guy. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-long-goodbye-1973.html
1 comment:
As a fan of Chandler's writing, and film noir in general, this fell pretty flat. In fact rather than re-watching the first half hour to understand the convoluted plot, I skipped through the last half hour just to get it over with. Neeson immediately didn't feel right as Marlowe (perhaps because of all the great actors who'd already played him, but largely because of his age and still slightly noticeable accent), and the whole production just looked too much like one of those films set in the past that overdoes the "authenticity." (Although this has some odd aspects, as Marlowe drives around in a shiny new 1939 Packard coupe - maybe not an issue to most viewers, but I am an old car fan, and while this was that company's low-end offering, Packard was a luxury brand of the era and more expensive/pretentious than the Plymouth that Chandler indicates he drove). There are also modern-seeming moments that feel way off (spoiler alerts!), like a sort of torture dungeon the heavy imprisons Marlowe and a few other guys in, or the scene where Marlowe interviews an actress on the set of her B-grade gangster flick. She has a bloody exploded prosthetic eye on on the whole time from her just-filmed scene of being machine-gunned, but a Hollywood movie that displayed that level of gore seems more appropriate to Bonnie and Clyde than anything made in the '30s/40s.
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