X
- 2023
- R
- Briarcliff Entertainment
- 1 h 49 m
- 2023
- R
- Briarcliff Entertainment
- 1 h 49 m
Summary In late 1930’s Los Angeles, down on his luck detective Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress (Diane Kruger), daughter of a well-known movie star (Jessica Lange). The disappearance unearths a web of lies, and soon Marlowe is involved in a dangerous, deadly investigation where everyone involved h...
Directed By: Neil Jordan
Written By: William Monahan, John Banville, Raymond Chandler
- 2023
- R
- Briarcliff Entertainment
- 1 h 49 m
- 2023
- R
- Briarcliff Entertainment
- 1 h 49 m
Marlowe
41
5.3
Where to Watch
Summary In late 1930’s Los Angeles, down on his luck detective Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress (Diane Kruger), daughter of a well-known movie star (Jessica Lange). The disappearance unearths a web of lies, and soon Marlowe is involved in a dangerous, deadly investigation where everyone involved h...
Directed By: Neil Jordan
Written By: William Monahan, John Banville, Raymond Chandler
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 24 Critic Reviews
41
25% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
54% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
21% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 24 Critic Reviews
41
25% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
54% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
21% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Revisionist this may be, but it’s done with smarts and, sure ... perceptiveness and sensitivity.
The mystery isn’t all that engrossing, and the picture devolves into some CYA third act over-explaining to compensate for that. It can be a bit much, and more often than not. So OK, maybe it is a bad picture that’s still fun.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 24 User Ratings
5.3
25% Positive
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
58% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
17% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 24 User Ratings
5.3
25% Positive
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
58% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
17% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
Marlowe's script is disciplined under two hours, runs at a clip that just slightly outstrips your ability to comfortably follow, leaving you working out the character you've just met or the circumstances into which you've just been dropped. It does not treat you gently. It does not waste its breath with overlong explanation or trauma plot background. It does not always even wait for the laughter to die down before it launches itself into another brilliantly lumbering fight scene, another exquisitely weird car confessional, another unexpected meeting at a place you thought you'd never see again. For months, Friends, Wife, and I have been playing a board game which pits three detectives against a game master who controls the testimony of every NPC on the board in 1930s LA. Wife has been reading mystery novels compulsively for years, contains the motives of hundreds of paperback criminals and the B plots of dozens of dimestore novels. Everyone (except Wife) puts on terrible noir accents and grouses about the number of hats we've given to our suspects (a symbol for how well we've been able to detect their lying). We cheerfully brag about the evidence we have stashed in the trunk of our cars and ignore the complaints from one Friend about how many turns we've wasted at variously dirty-sounding nightclubs operated by the mob. So when I saw that there was going to be a film staring Neeson which might remotely capture all of that magic, I assembled the team. The corona of that shared experience hangs around our movie going experience. Phillip Marlowe (played by Liam Neeson) is an old dog, a private **** staring into the office of a much busier, better furnished office in the very first scene of the movie. The way we learn more about him is through the little we hear from his various contacts in law enforcement who caution him against pursuing this case. That slow drip of backstory is so rewarding to gather and pool as you watch him dig deeper into the rabbit hole. It reminds me in some ways of another film that took an aging actor and very consciously situated the action in the man's twilight years, Ian McKellan playing a Sherlock Holmes on his final case. For Neeson's Marlowe, his advanced years don't stop him from fighting altogether, so much as slow him down from beating the crap out of younger goons who underestimate his ability to throw a punch. Think Batman in Batman Beyond.
For a noir junkie, Marlowe has everything you could want and finds ways to twist some of those standard tropes: some interesting commentaries on sexuality and race, red herrings, McGuffins, action that bears an R rating, and a plot that does not lose itself in the final act. There are no dull moments and no dead time. Upon further reflection, I know that there is inevitably going to be a measured and thoughtful critique of the Latino representation in this film: the fact that Mexico is erroneously portrayed as the crime-ridden source of sex workers and hard drugs, that the only two instances in which racial slurs are used in the movie are reserved for Latino folks, that the only Mexicans portrayed are particularly nasty thugs or the victims of those thugs. Myopic takes on southern borders should take care to note that they are inviting more circumspect writers to pull the same kind of shenanigans by shifting story locations a few thousand miles north to the 49th parallel. Would the movie have been better if it had found a way to de-center the nastiness of those flat stereotypes? Definitely, but--and I know that "but" is doing more work than some people are going to be willing to tolerate--I hope that some of the people who would otherwise be turned off by the thinness of some of the characterization of Marlowe might take interest in a subtextually **** reading of the film.
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Liam Neeson is the dullest denizen of this particularly unctuous Hollywood After Dark. As Marlowe, he uncovers the usual blackmail, grand larceny, homicide and other crimes corrupting the klieg light rays of Southern California, without much energy or wit.
Marlowe isn’t the catastrophe that others may make it out to be, but it’s instead just inert, forgettable immediately after the credits roll. Jordan feels like he’s going through the motions, uninterested in bringing any personality to the genre.
The 70-year-old Neeson lacks both the physical stamina and charisma to pull off the Marlowe character; his fight and action sequences are sluggish and incredulous, and there’s zero chemistry between Marlowe and Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger), the beautiful blond who hires him to investigate the sudden disappearance of her former lover Nico Peterson.
Despite a stellar cast, Marlowe doesn’t rise to the occasion, stumbling along without ever finding its footing.
Neil Jordan’s Marlowe is an homage so riddled with noir clichés that one may initially take it for a genre parody, except that the jokes never arrive.
Marlowe might look good with its neon signs and smokey rooms, yet this detective movie is as diffused as its film noir-stylized shadows and as watered down as a cheap margarita.
Marlowe does follow through on PI tropes. Jordan and Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan make good use of their cliches as the conventions of fisticuffs and tommy-guns give way.
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I'd still say this is slightly above the average B movie. Neeson carries much of Marlowe.
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Another film wasting talent, premise and great source material. It has the cheap veneer of the noire genre but, honestly, you’d be way better off playing a game like L.A. Noire. This is the stage of entertainment we’re at now: games used to try to emulate the quality of movies, but now modern movies are easily outshined by modern games. Cool structure—poorly executed.
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Production Company
Parallel Film Productions,
Hills Productions AIE,
Davis-Films,
H2L Media Group,
Nickel City Pictures,
Storyboard Media,
Aperture Media Partners,
Elipsis Capital,
Jeff Rice Films,
Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland
Release Date Feb 15, 2023
Duration 1 h 49 m
Rating R
Tagline Los Angeles, 1939. Outside the spotlight lies a city of secrets.
Awards
Irish Film and Television Awards
• 2 Nominations
