MARLOWE (2022)
a review by Evan Landon
Who doesn't love a good noir? I know I do.
I also love a good Liam Neeson popcorn flick, but those are few and far between these days. I could not even tell you what any of his vehicles were about this past decade. He really has found his niche though, you have to admit that much!
This movie is not one of his usual movies as of recent, however, which made me want to see it. They do not make many noirs these days and Neeson is definitely a great fit for the role of private investigator in Prohibition Los Angeles, but that also serves as one of its drawbacks. When an actor is so fitting for a part, it can almost seem like they are sleepwalking through the picture.
The film's titular protagonist is actually one from whenst crime noir films were extremely popular; where one would light everyone else's cigarettes, nor matter which the danger. The character of “Marlowe” actually comes from a pulp comic from the prohibition era by an author named Raymond Chandler, who in turn co-wrote the great classic noir screenplay Double Indemnity in 1944 with Billy Wilder based on a novel by James M. Cain. This story was partitioned from the 2014 called “The Black-Eyed Blond” by John Banville, essentially keeping the character alive after the passing of its creator.
In fact, this could be considered a “standalone sequel” from the 1969 version starring James Garner and Bruce Lee; the only thing that keeps it on its own merit is that it is not a continuation of that story, titled “The Little Sister”, but is a different case altogether that did not even exist yet.
With this case, Phillip Marlowe is now a retired Los Angeles detective turned private investigator who is commissioned by a sultry, young lady to find her lover who was a prop master for one of the major motion picture studios just starting off. Well, this dude got his head ran over outside of a Bourgeoisie Hollywood country club and now this lady is saying it was not him because she saw him driving around a week or so later. What unfolds is a series of twists and turns that will turn not only the impact of the case and those involved, but the innocent lives surrounding them.
To be fair, I always hated these kind of stories that unapologetically point out that the entire story revolves around people writing a story. Stephen King (for as much as I love him) is one of the most guilty of this. I always enjoy a thematic, articulate story, but what takes me out of it is when the writer puts themselves so far into it that it takes away from the story itself. It would be like me writing about a guy who loads tractor trailers for a living, then blogs on the side on Twitter as your main character. Oh, “you're a writer?” No fucking shit. Not everyone is, so apparently, you are trying to write for writers.
Marlowe, in itself, is a wonderful noir. It beats the belts off of sub-par ones that take no notice of the afflictions, not tones, of their predecessors. I honestly like this movie a lot more than the other Neeson films that have run rampant the past decade.
This one almost offers an homage to the “Greats” that came beforehand, yet its subtlety almost rings of rewrites by studio executives that hoped for a Redbox release. Too many fingers in the pie, as Marlowe would say himself.
3 out of 5