Marloweisn’t an entry into the ever-growing neo-noir canon. It isn’t a parody of the tropes and conventions of the once-beloved hardboiled genre. It isn’t even an updated take on the characters and stories. It’s just a straightforward new entry in the catalog. Anyone longing to return to a different age of filmmaking with very few new bells and whistles has found their dream film. Anyone else can probably pass.
Marloweisn’t an adaptation of any of Raymond Chandler’soriginal pulp novels. Instead, it adaptsThe Black Eyed Blonde, John Banville’s licensed modern Marlowe novel. Director Neil Jordan already nailed noir in his 1986 filmMona Lisaand screenwriter William Monahan hasThe Departedunder his belt. With the pedigree behindMarlowe, it’s hard not to expect more.
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Marlowebegins like most film noir, and incidentally “like most film noir” would be a good subtitle. Agorgeous yet enigmatic heiress(Diane Kruger) steps into the office of Phillip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) and hires him to find her missing lover. The detective swiftly discovers the lover’s corpse and finds that there’s more going on than a missing person. His investigation leads him into conflict with a shady club owner (Danny Huston,) a delightfully unhinged gangster (Alan Cumming,) and his client’s washed-up film star mother (Jessica Lange.) The mystery is a mess, alternating wildly betweenblisteringly obvious twists andcompletely inexplicable reveals. It feels like a needlessly long episode ofPhilip Marlowe, Private Eye.
There are a lot of strong elements at play inMarlowe. David Holmes’s score is characteristically solid. He’s best known for hiswork with Stephen Soderbergh, includingOut of Sight, Ocean’s Eleven, andLogan Lucky, but he adapts to the genre exceptionally well. The cinematography by Xavi Giménez ofThe Machinistfame is fairly engaging. Monahan’s script is a bit of a mixed bag, clearly taking aim at early Hollywood and the tropes of the genre, but frequently missing the mark. Jordan’s direction also frequently leaves much to be desired. He’s clearly stuck, bolted, and rivetedto the genre conventions, but a bit more room to play in the space might’ve made the film more enjoyable. Where Jordan appears to excel is in directing his performers, because there’s some wonderful acting on display here.
Liam Neeson, by far the oldest actor to portray Marlowe, turns in a perfectly straight-laced take on the character. Like the rest of the film, he’s just following in the footsteps of everything that came before him. He’s relatively likable, but his occasional gag will leave some viewers pining for thatproposedNaked Gunreboot. Neeson is probably the least interesting performer in the bunch. Kruger is basically on autopilot, but she was born for this type of gig. Lange is enjoyably nasty, though it’s a bit funny to listen to one of the two American actors in a film packed with English and Irish folks putting on an Irish accent. Alan Cumming doesn’t get a lot to do, but he makes a buffet out of a couple of lines. He unironically delivers the line “I am made up entirely of tarantulas” with such perfect sincerity that one could almost believe it’s not a figure of speech. Special commendations also go to Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who has a seemingly minor role that swiftly threatens to steal the show. It’s a great cast, all of whom valiantly put the film on their shoulders and carry it across the finish line.
The unfortunate weakness ofMarloweis its overwhelming lack of new ideas. Aside from the performances, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done better elsewhere. It’s not the best movie about Phillip Marlowe by a long shot. Countless modern detective films handle their material with a degree of originality that is sorely lacking here. While straight-up pulp noir films aren’t common,the neo-noir subgenrekeeps the tradition alive with all the filmmaking knowledge gained over the intervening century. This isn’t even to say that there isn’t a place for straightforward noir in the modern era, just that this level of commitment to the bit drags the film out of relevancy. Hardcore fans of the genre will likely be the primary audience forMarlowe, but they’ll also be the group most likely to have seen it all before.
There’s some fun to be had withMarlowe, but it isn’t the kind of thing that revives a dead genre. Anyone looking for a modern successor to film noir would find much more to love inGuillermo del Toro’sNightmare Alley.Marlowecaptures the feel of the pulp noir genre a bit too well. Its set design is immaculate, its music is solid, and its characters feel like they walked out of old silver screens. Unfortunately, it’s all in service of a messy mystery and a bizarrely uninspired retread of a very old film movement.Marloweis likely to drop on one streaming service or the other within a month or two, and it’s well worth checking out in that context. Enter with the right expectations or be forced to ponder the mystery of what Neil Jordan was thinking.
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Marlowe
Marlowe is a neo-noir crime thriller directed by Neil Jordan, featuring Liam Neeson as the eponymous private detective Philip Marlowe. Set in 1930s Los Angeles, the film follows Marlowe as he becomes entangled in a complex case involving a mysterious heiress, played by Diane Kruger, and a web of deception. The screenplay, adapted by William Monahan, is based on the novel The Black-Eyed Blonde by John Banville.
