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The Elderly Irish "O'Marlowe" -- But Still Pretty Good (Oscared Filmmakers)

posted a year ago by ecarle (14979)
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I have seen"Marlowe," the NEW (2023) Phillip Marlowe "movie"(it played theaters for a minute; I watched it on streaming.) Some thoughts:

I think it is interesting that we now have TWO Phillip Marlowe movies called "Marlowe." The other one is from way back when in 1969, set modern day in 1969, and looks like a 1969 movie, with a hippie-ish ambiance to LA and jazz(not rock) on the soundtrack.

THAT Marlowe had James Garner in his late 30s or early 40s I think -- very fit(though a gut was forming on his broad body) , very handsome, very laid back AND ready for action. I found Roger Ebert's 1969 review of Marlowe and it has an embarrassing reference to young Bruce Lee as a bad guy in the movie: Ebert called him a "Japanese karate expert." Oops, young Roger had some learning to do.

THIS Marlowe is Liam Neeson at 70, and thus 50-something Robert Mitchum in his two 1970's Marlowe movies(the period piece "Farewell My Lovely" and the modern-day "Big Sleep") looks....young?

Its not all that distracting how old Neeson is..he's been bringing us along for over a decade now as "the world's oldest living action star" ,(other than harrison ford), and he IS tall, and in this movie people keep calling him "this big guy" and his hair is dyed brown(I think; at least it isn't gray.)

After one fight scene, Neeson literally says "I'm too old for this shit" and I wasn't sure to laugh or to wince. That line was famously said by Danny Glover(playing a 50 year old) in the original "Lethal Weapon" and has become a joke-cliche over the years. Thing is: would RAYMOND CHANDLER ever have written that line?

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

But this is interesting: "Marlowe 2023" isn't from a REAL Raymond Chandler novel (it is from a 2014 sanctioned copycat novel called , but the adapted screenplay WAS written by a REAL Oscar winner -- William Monahan, who won for the fine crime epic "The Departed" in 2006. So the writing credentials are solid on this movie.

Moreover, the movie is directed by Neil Jordan, who directed(and co-wrote) the great British crime movie "Mona Lisa" back in the 80's and has worked on other movies with Liam Neeson, and Jordan TOO has an Oscar for screenwriting -- The Crying Game, which he also directed in 1992.

Indeed, with Neeson, Jordan and Monahan, "Marlowe 2023" has a decided Irish influence to it (Neeson's Marlowe IS Irish; he references fighting in the Irish Army) and was actually FILMED partially in Dublin(and also Spain -- NO Los Angeles locations were used.) Maybe they should have called this "O'Marlowe."

Funny: I watched the streaming trailer for "Marlowe 2023." There is CGI shot of Los Angeles and Neeson intones "Los Angeles, the thirties" But then in the movie, they NEVER call it Los Angeles. They call it "Bay City."

Interesting: near the end of Marlowe 2023, the famous director Alfred Hitchcock is actually spoken of. There is a an African-American character who becomes Marlowe's sidekick/partner against the bad guys. He's a real movie buff and he speaks to how, for Marlowe to solve this mystery, he should think about how "Mr. Hitchcock" would have solved it. The black guy notes: "Mr. Hitchcock always Keeps his script to himself." Weirdly, this story is set at the fictional "Pacific Studios" and the black guy says "Its too bad that Mr. Hitchcock is leaving our studio to go to MGM." Well Hitch only went to MGM once -- in 1958 -- for North by Northwest. Of course, the Pacific Studio in this movie doesn't even exist.

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

The "Pacific Studios" backdrop allows Marlowe 2023 to bring in fictional versions of JFK's dad, Joseph Kennedy(here only called The Ambassador) as a former bootlegger turned studio head turned ambassadar. And thus we get a fictional Gloria Swanson(Kennedy's real life amour) called Dorothy Quincannon and played by Jessica Lange, all blonde and aged and playing an actress who knows she has aged out of ingenue roles but still wants to play the sexpot. (Still, she tells Marlowe, "You always need to know when your game is up in the movie business.")

Lange's old actress has a pretty young blonde daughter in Clare Cavendish, played by Diane Kruger as a "mini-me" version of her more famous mother.

Way back in 2009, Diane Kruger played the German actress/anti-Nazi spy in QT's "Inglorious Basterds" and I thought she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen on the screen. (She had a real-life relationship with a ex-teen actor named Joshua Jackson that never made sense to me, but: lucky guy.)

Well, in 2023, Diane Kruger is still beautiful, but the make-up,the HD photography and the stylization of her hair combine to FIGHT that beauty(as did 14 years I suppose.) Its always a bit sad to see your gorgeous or handsome stars age. Still, she's good in her part, which carries conscious echoes of Faye Dunaway in Chinatown and every Femme Fatale who ever brought a case to a private eye to start a mystery movie.

There are a couple of other Chinatown echoes. Brought in as a mystery man and possible villain is Danny Huston, son of John Huston, who was Noah Cross in Chinatown. Danny doesn't look like John much at all but has his own weirdly villainous/amusing face. He played a truly menacing 1959 Miami mobster years ago on a sexy cable series called Magic City(lots of nude women and sex on that show) and I've kept an eye out for him ever since.

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

In another scene, Marlowe interviews a female actress who is wearing horrific make-up to mimic one of her eyes being shot out -- a clear reference to a character's death in Chinatown - except this woman is very much alive and we have to look at that eye wound for MINUTES. (I doubt a 1939 American studio film would allow for an image of such horror.)

Note in passing: on the "Van Sant Psycho Making of" DVD, William H. Macy (Arbogast) puckishly does an interview with a bloody slash down his face(makeup), totally deadpan. Same effect.

A very entertaining actor named Alan Cumming plays the kind of gayish villain he has played before(notably in Sly Stallone's remake of Get Carter). He famously played a hotel clerk opposite Tom Cruise in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and I was interested to see that he has aged and grayed out of his youthful self...but the "Alan Cumming style" is still there.

That's about it for "name players" in "Marlowe 2023," but that's enough(Oh wait, I recognized Colm Meaney -- ANOTHER Irishman -- as an LA cop.)

So: is it good? Oh, good enough. The film doesn't play in the "all time classic' realm of the first Big Sleep, nor can Neeson touch Bogart in the role. Instead, Neeson gets put in that crowd of "other" Marlowes and I dunno who I like MORE, but yeah probably: Mitchum, Elliott Gould and James Garner, I like more than Neeson. So....Neeson didn't do too well, competitively.

"Taken" was 14 years ago too, and I'm not sure how many more fight scenes(especially against three younger guys) Neeson should film. He is only BARELY believable in his coupla fights here. He is MORE believable as a decent, heroic, tarnished knight and he dutifully follows the clues and meets the people. In both the case and the unfolding of the plot, with the 30s/40s ambiance, Marlowe 2023 reminded me of Mitchum's period "Farewell My Lovely" and the NON-Marlowe Denzel vehicle "Devil in a Blue Dress." Yeah -- those two are most like this one.

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[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

In one scene, Diane Kruger comes on to Marlowe for sex and he notes -- demoralizingly, I thought -- "I'm twice your age." Who needs THAT in a private eye tale? Neeson adds some other reasons why not("You're my employer") and it is suggested that maybe age wont matter at some later time, but still -- why put that in this tale? Actually, Neeson looks better suited sexually with the old looking Jessica Lange -- who played Neeson's wife decades ago when they were young and sexy in Rob Roy.

These thoughts -- about the Irishness of the cast, crew and backstory, about a REALLY old Marlowe -- at once cluttered my watching of Marlowe 2023 and made it...different? That the plot brought in a fictional Gloria Swanson and a REAL Alfred Hitchcock was...fun.

And in the final analysis, the movie did what a Marlowe movie is supposed to do -- keep you guessing, a bit, about whodunnit and why; supply some good comeupppance action against the villains who tortured and slashed the throat of a young woman(the addition of a black partner to help Marlowe fight and kill people is perhaps the most 2023 thing about it), and add in a BIT of sexuality from the female side of the street.

It was OK, I guess. Not REAL Raymond Chandler but a reasonable facsimile.

And one more thing: as an older person myself, I guess I should be proud that we are getting all these 70-something action heroes (and, in Dirty Grandpa, a 70-something sexual being in Robert DeNiro.) Nobody's telling us to go gentle into that good night, we're being given role models for fantasy sex and violence, and that's OK too.

[–] TandyMan (10372) a year ago

I'm having an odd feeling watching the movie. I don't mind seeing this old man version of the character, but it's weird that it's set back in the day. Was this guy actually an old west gunslinger before society settled down? They also put a lot of work into the time period and it's actually a shame they didn't get an age appropriate actor for the role. As anachronistic as it is, happy to have it.