Susan Granger’s review of “Marlowe” (Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)
This is 70-year-old Liam Neeson’s 100th film! I just wish it were better.
Based on “The Black-Eyed Blonde” by Irish novelist John Banville, writing under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, it’s not even one of Raymond Chandler’s original Philip Marlowe tales.
Set in Los Angeles in 1939, street-wise Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is hired by femme fatale heiress Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) to find her former lover, Nico Peterson (Francois Arnaud), who may or may not have been the victim of a hit-and-run accident in front of an exclusive club.
His investigation includes lengthy – i.e.: boring – interviews with Clare’s former movie-star mother, Dorothy Quincannon (Jessica Lange); the club’s manager, Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston); and sleazy mob boss Lou Hendricks (Alan Cumming).
Leisurely scripted by William Monahan (“The Departed”) as a vintage film noir, it’s self-consciously directed by Neil Jordan (“The Crying Game”), who previously collaborated with Liam Neeson on “Michael Collins” (1996) and “Breakfast on Pluto” (2005).
Filmed by cinematographer Xavi Gimenez in Dublin and Barcelona, any resemblance to the light in California is purely coincidental…and “I’ll Be Seeing You” is constantly playing in the background.
There are mentions of Dorothy Quincannon’s affair with a prominent banker which are supposed to evoke memories of Gloria Swanson’s entanglement with Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of Massachusetts’ prominent Kennedy clan.
But researchers missed their mark referring to the journalist’s handbook “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White. That venerable tome was written in 1918 by William Strunk, but E.B. White’s collaboration was not added until 1959….so it could not exist in the film’s 1939 time frame.
(Over the years, the iconic Philip Marlowe private detective has been played by Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, James Garner, Robert Mitchum and Elliot Gould, among others.)
After a tepid reception as the closing film of the San Sebastian International Film Festival in September, it’s original December 2022 release date was postponed until February, 2023. It made only $1.8 million in its opening weekend, it only totaled a paltry $2.9 million in its first five days.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Marlowe” is a tedious 3, available to rent via RedBox.
