Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Neil Jordan
Stars: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Danny Huston, Jessica Lange, Ian Hart, Colm Meaney, Alan Cumming, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Francois Arnaud, Daniela Melchoir.
Philip Marlowe is the tough talking cynical private detective first created by author Raymond Chandler in 1939 in the novel The Big Sleep. Marlowe has since featured in many novels and has been portrayed on screen by the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, George Montgomery, James Garner, Elliot Gould and Robert Mitchum. This time, Irish actor Liam Neeson steps into the gumshoe’s shoes and brings a perennially cynical and world-weary touch to his performance as an older version of the character (which he acknowledges with a familiar throwaway line) and proves to be a good fit for the familiar character.
But rather than an adaptation of another of Chandler’s novels, Neil Jordan’s film is based on the 2014 novel The Black-eyed Blonde, which was written by Irish author John Banville under the pseudonym of Benjamin Black. Jordan co-wrote the script with William Monahan (The Departed, etc), and the film pays homage to the hard-boiled noir of the 40s and 50s with this film. The story here mirrors Chandler’s labyrinthine plotting, and includes many touchstones of the genre, including a seductive femme fatale, plenty of hard-boiled dialogue, a plethora of villainous types and the typical McGuffin. And as it delves into a backdrop of vice and corruption in the city of angels, Marlowe shares a number of elements with the classic noir of Chinatown.
The film is set in Los Angeles, in the fictitious area of Bay City, in 1939. Marlowe is approached by glamorous socialite and oil heiress Claire Cavendish (Diane Kruger) to find her missing lover Nico Peterson (Francois Arnaud), who worked in the props department of a major film studio. Marlowe is informed by his police contact Joe Green (Ian Hart) that Peterson is dead, the victim of a hit and run accident outside the exclusive Corbata Club. However, Claire argues that this is impossible as she has recently seen Nico, alive and well, during a trip to Tijuana.
Marlowe’s investigation leads him into a dark underworld of vice and corruption that involves Floyd Hansom (Danny Huston), the suave but vaguely menacing manager of the Corbata Club; sinister and foppish drug dealer Lloyd Hendricks (Alan Cumming); faded former movie star Dorothy Quincannon (Jessica Lange, in her first film in six years), Claire’s mother who has a bitter relationship with her daughter; and Lynn (Daniela Melchoir), Peterson’s sister. And detective Bernie Ohls (Colm Meaney) would prefer to have Marlowe do the dirty work in the investigation as he doesn’t have a pension to protect.
Marlowe was shot mainly in Spain and Ireland, but boasts some great production values and period detail. The production design from John Beard recreates the era superbly and cinematographer Xavi Gimenez (The Machinist, etc) bathes the film in suitably nostalgic golden tones.
This is Neeson’s third film for Jordan, and the director seems to know how to get the best out of his star. Although now too old to be convincing in a couple of bruising action sequences, Neeson makes the most of the laconic detective here. Lange is suitably cold and imperious as the faded film star (a character loosely based on several of the screen sirens of the era). Huston’s presence here as a powerful and corrupt villain will remind audiences of his father’s similar role in Polanski’s Chinatown nearly fifty years ago.
Ultimately this latest take on the legendary character is not as memorable as the best films in the hard-boiled film noir genre despite a solid cast and some great production values.
★★★
