PLOT: In 1939 Los Angeles, hard-boiled private detective Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is hired by the daughter (Diane Kruger) of a legendary silent star (Jessica Lange) to find a prop man who went missing. Marlowe quickly finds himself embroiled in a case involving drugs, murder, and secrets that the powers-that-be in Hollywood would like kept secret.
REVIEW: With Marlowe, Liam Neeson finds himself stepping into the shoes of perhaps the most iconic film noir hero of all time. Writer Raymond Chandler’s books were big favourites in Tinseltown in the forties, with Dick Powell (Murder My Sweet), Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep) and many more playing Philip Marlowe during the peak noir era. In the seventies neo-noir revival years, the character once again became hip, with Robert Mitchum playing an older Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely and a remake of The Big Sleep. In contrast, Elliot Gould played a hip, spaced-out Marlowe in Robert Altman’s fantastic The Long Goodbye (which is streaming on Criterion Channel this month).
So how does Neeson compare to all these iconic portrayals? Quite well, actually. Like Mitchum, he plays an older Marlowe, but truth be told, even though he’s seventy, he doesn’t look much older than Powell and Bogart did when they played the character in their forties (and looks way younger than Mitchum did in his fifties). People age differently now, and Neeson’s taken care of himself. His Marlowe isn’t as quick with his mouth as Bogart’s, but Neeson does his own thing here. His Marlowe is world-weary but still an optimist, and as the character has always been portrayed, he has a code of honour that makes him incorruptible.
Director Neil Jordan, who’s memorably dabbled in noir with Mona Lisa and The Crying Game, is the perfect director to modernize the character. Notably, the film is based on a more recent novel, “The Black-Eyed Blonde” by John Banville, and the film feels more in keeping with our times than vintage Chandler. The premise, which involves a lot of evil done by studio chiefs, feels very much the product of a post-Weinstein generation. The movie gets more violent than Chandler would have been allowed to get in his novels. There’s a lot of darkness, especially once Neeson’s Marlowe begins digging deeper into the web of sin he finds.
As a concession to Neeson’s more recent status as our generation’s Charles Bronson (I mean that in a good way), there’s more action than you’d typically find in a Marlowe movie. He’s a lot quicker with his fists than Bogie ever was, with some brief, brutal fights effectively filmed by Jordan, who knows exactly how to showcase his leading man (with them having made High Spirits, Michael Collins, and Breakfast on Pluto together).
Jordan’s surrounded Neeson with a solid cast of character actors, including Jessica Lange in full Gloria Swanson mode as a former star who knows exactly where all the bodies are buried. Diane Kruger is being tipped as the movie’s femme fatale, but her character is more sympathetic than usual for the genre, and as keeping with classic Marlowe, he’s always too smart to fall for anyone’s charms. Some great Irish character actors like Ian Hart and Colm Meaney show up in small roles as Marlowe’s cop pals, while Danny Huston has a ton of fun channelling his father (the legendary John Huston) as the film’s central, coke-shovelling bad guy. Alan Cumming also pleasingly chews a bit of scenery as a red herring, with him effortlessly digging into screenwriter William Monahan’s fanciful take on the character. Plus, there’s former Lost star Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as a smarter-than-he-seems henchman, The Suicide Squad’s Daniela Melchior, and a few others.
Best of all, though, is Jordan’s impeccable technical sense, with the film having a hyper-vivid visual style courtesy of DP Xabi Gimenez. Typically, neo-noir movies opt to mimic either the golden age black and white look or opt for a more art deco approach. Jordan has this shot like it’s Blade Runner, with incredible lensing that makes it look unlike anything else out there. The music by David Holmes (Ocean’s Eleven) is likewise excellent.
While it’s easy to see why people would be wary of yet another Liam Neeson action flick, Marlowe is one of the good ones. I haven’t liked much of his recent output, but with Jordan at the helm, the Monahan screenplay, the cast and the visuals, this is a surprisingly excellent modern noir that I really enjoyed. Aficionados of the genre will eat this up, provided you don’t go in expecting another Taken.
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