'Marlowe' movie review: The uninspiring attempt at reinventing Marlowe

Marlowe still

Film: Marlowe
Cast: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Danny Huston, Alan Cumming, Ian Hart, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Daniela Melchior
Director: Neil Jordan
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 109 min

Liam Neeson at 70, re-teams with his "Michael Collins" director Neil Jordan, to play the title role in "Marlowe." This film has not been adapted from a Raymond Chandler book but "The Black-Eyed Blonde," published in 2014, authored by Irish novelist John Banville - which was apparently sanctioned by Chandler's estate.

The film is set in Bay City, L.A., in 1939, and opens with a beautiful shot of palm trees against the sun before giving us a glimpse of Philip Marlowe getting himself out of bed. Just when poor business and loneliness have taken their toll on private detective Philip Marlowe, arrives a beautiful blonde, Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger), hires him to find her young, movie-industry-affiliated boyfriend. There are many more complications to the story that also involves Clare's former actress mother (Jessica Lange) who has an intense interest in her daughter's personal life and a "ambassador" involved in a film studio. Add to that Huston's sleazy nightclub owner, a frightened sister, an aging starlet, a couple of cop friends of Marlowe's, a corrupt bigwig played by Alan Cumming, and a savvy chauffeur (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) - sufficient components for a percolating plot.

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The mystery does deepen as the story starts unraveling but unfortunately the tempo doesn't kick up.

The narrative keeps a mournful pace and tone with David Holmes' score pepping it up a notch or two from time to time.

Raymond Chandler's eponymous L.A. detective has been played quite memorably by Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, James Garner, and Elliott Gould in their heyday before this. Compared to them, a present-day Liam Neeson feels too weighed down and deadbeat. But that's not much of an issue since the character is supposedly someone who has aged like good wine and is still attractive and desired by beautiful women of all ages. That's not a far stretch for Neeson in this story because we see the mother-daughter duo Jessica Lange and Diane Kruger running him around in circles.

Marlowe has quite a few fight sequences but it's not of the swift and fast variety. The narrative builds up some sinister steam, leading to a climactic nightclub siege. The vintage noir look adopted for this film seems a trifle flimsy considering the lack of depth in characters and questionable motivations.

There's not much intrigue here. The mystery comes across as trifling and the resolution far too muddy to pass muster. There's atmospheric haze in the camerawork but it appears rather skin-deep. Neeson, Kruger, and Lange fail to spark up interest either. They all look too worn to win an audience over.

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