If we had to choose one day of the year as the weakest in film releases, that would be May 12, 2023, at which time some of the weakest films we have seen in a long time will meet in theaters. and they don’t meet expectations at all. To the disappointing The Bounty Hunter and Jeepers Creepers: Rebirth adds Marlowe.
It’s not easy to sum up everything that doesn’t work in this piece of film noir that he aspired to revive one of the most philosophical and pragmatic detectives in literature: one of those tough guys without excessive ego, with a passion for poetry and chess who would not define themselves as indispensable to anyone.
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Trailer for Marlowe with Liam Nesson and Diane Kruger
The script obviously falters, but it is also that a work of its genre usually has certain aspirations in terms of photography and staging that are not present here either.
If we take into account that the team is led by a director who is not very prolific but normally much more inspired as Neil Jordanwhose filmography includes films of the caliber of The End of the Romance, it hurts even more to see how unwise this proposal is that it does not meet the formal or plot level.
Before going into details, let’s explain the origin of this Marlowe. Although the detective was created by Raymond Chadler and starred in as many as twelve novels and short stories, some completed or written by Robert Brown Parker and Lawrence Osborne, this film is John Banville’s revisiting of the character in the novel “Black Eyed Blonde.”
Authors such as Stephen King have spoken wonders of her, lauding her with words such as the following: “Somewhere Raymond Chandler is smiling… I adore this book. It’s as if a friend whose death you had assumed appeared in the room.”
Marlowe – Image Gallery (3 images)
So… what has happened for a novel considered excellent to have been the origin of such a different film? First of all, the script that Jordan has co-written with William Monahan (The Player) introduces a big change: if the novel takes place in the 50s, the film takes us back to 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War.
The themes in the book are present on the screen as well, but without any force, detaching from everything noir does to engage the audience: no biting dialogue, no ulterior motives, not even an attractive and intriguing visual treatment. . Everything is laid out so flat and simple that it lacks interest.
So yes, we visited the underworld of Los Angeles, we verified that hypocrisy is the usual currency in the underworld of cinema, with a very dark B-side linked to prostitution, drug trafficking and the mafia, but somehow manner Marlowe he manages to keep none of it mysterious, haunting, or as hypnotically murky as it should be.
Regarding the design of the characters, more of the same. There have been many film incarnations of Philip Marlowe: while Chandler would have loved to cast Cary Grant in the role, he was brought to life by Humphrey Bogart, George Montgomery, Robert Mitchum, Elliot Gould, Danny Glover, James Caan and James Garner, before he Liam Neeson has assumed its less energetic version.
The femme fatale, that Clare Cavendish called to drive him crazy played by Diane Kruger He doesn’t have that halo of beautiful malignancy that characterizes his stereotype or any chemistry with Neeson, and the actor doesn’t save well what are supposed to be the most affordable sequences for him, taking into account his recent filmography, the action ones.
In spite of all that has been said above, which is not little, what is most astonishing about Marlowe it is that its development is linear, without narrative cadence or dramatic pulse to the point of awakening more torpor than genuine interest in reaching the outcome.
Unfortunately, it is in the antipodes of a good noir with an aesthetic that goes against the current in which anachronistic neon lights are mixed, sequences in full sun and in which there are few reasons to retain attention on something other than the occasional failures of raccord. Pity.
