“Marlowe” (2022)
Stylish if empty Hollywood tale.
Based upon the 2014 novel “The Black-Eyed Blonde” written by John Banville and written for the screen by the Oscar winning William Monahan (The Departed, The Tender Bar, The Gambler), this is fellow Oscar winner Neil Jordan’s nineteenth cinematic feature length offering from the directors chair in a four decade long career that has seen him guide Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire and Michael Collins to huge worldwide acclaim. After such a build up you would be forgiven for thinking that I was building up to extol similar virtues on Marlowe here and whilst I won’t be, this film certainly has its merits, if ultimately it’s rather rudimentary and straight forward.
The premise is as follows: With World War II only a month or so old it has yet to touch or impinge upon the high society or high times of 1939 Hollywood littered with the human casualties, veterans and returnees from the first World War. Philip Marlowe is one such veteran but twenty years on he is now a successful private detective hired to track down a budding young actor at Pacific Film Studios and secret love for a moneyed heiress
Director Neil Jordan and leading man Liam Neeson collaborate once more and here in Neeson’s 100th all time he is the titular detective who whilst laconic, brooding and grizzled is seemingly forever bedecked in a three-piece suit of the era, often shot in close up and on fine form indeed. Neeson’s superb performance is one of the highlights of the film I alluded to earlier, together with the twin female roles brilliantly played by Diane Kruger as a smouldering and seductive femme fatale and Jessica Lange as a puppeteering and domineering power both behind and upon the throne of her Hollywood domain. Whilst Danny Huston and Alan Cumming both arrive to steal their scenes before exiting stage left (Huston via loud and brash bombast, Cumming a curiously odd “Businessman and Philanthropist”), the real star of the show, and whom grows and impresses the longer the film runs, is Adewale Akinnuoye-Abgaje in his role as chauffeur to the stars and much more besides.
Throughout this stylish, old school noir crime thriller I marvelled at several scenes or short segments that mightily impressed and caught my eye. Take for the instance the entirety of the opening scene between Neeson and Kruger that culminates in a perfectly framed silhouette shot through the private detective’s office door or the neon lit reflections of the Hollywood studio in a puddle or our leading man taking a similar reflective moon lit paddle at the beach. The late night dance between the two on the porch heightens the sexual/sensual tensions forever coming to the boil in a film that constantly reminded me of the fantastic PlayStation game of years gone by, LA Noire.
Not a classic by any means but neither is it a dud. There are some well drawn characters here draining every last drop from a story that for once has a suitable and befitting Hollywood ending.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 500+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
