Marlowe (2022)

On IMdB Marlowe gets just 5.6 and I for one wonder why. Admittedly, a mathematical 5 (as in ‘out of 10’) is ‘average’ – not good, not bad – yet broadly a 5.6 indicates for most that a film ‘is not that good’ and for them 6 would indicate it is ‘average’. Fine, although that doesn’t quite make sense, but if that’s how it works, that’s how it works. And that is unfair to Neil Jordan’s Marlowe. It isn’t at all ‘bad’ or even ‘average’.

Yes, it does has its flaws, but then which film doesn’t? At 70 Neeson is – some might argue – a tad old to portray Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, that is just the Marlowe of film convention: who says he has to be in his mid-30s or perhaps early 40s?

He is, after all, a fictional character, and if we can accept a woman playing Hamlet – and we can – Marlowe can be a tad older. We also don’t object to ‘Sir’ Mick Jagger, who as I write turned 83 a few days ago, still prancing around

on stage like some demented fawn, so let’s keep it real, shall we?

Furthermore, Neeson might not be the sprightly chap he no doubt fondly remembers once being, but nor is he, and certainly not in Marlowe, and embarrassing old crock (or a demented fawn). More to the point he does convey ‘Marlowe, the shrewd operator’ rather well.

Jordan’s Marlowe is not based on a Chandler story but one by the Irish novelist John Banville, in his ‘crime writer’ persona slumming it as ‘Benjamin Black’, and he does neatly come up with the entertaining convolutions in the Chandler originals. In other respects, too, Jordan’s Marlowe is very much up to snuff.

Quite impressively, it is not a Hollywood production, but an Irish one by director Neil Jordan who used Barcelona to impersonate Marlowe’s Los Angeles (or Bay City – couldn’t find it on Google maps).

 Apart from Neeson, several other non-American actors – Ian Hart, Colm Meaney, Diane Kruger, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Seána Kerslake and Alan Cumming – are involved.

I am not a Yank and I’m prepared to stand corrected, but all of them (and whatever other ‘foreigners’ were involved) do themselves proud. My one gripe would be that Cummings role is a tad thin and Cummings usually gives good value for money, but Cummings can’t be blamed for that.

Oh, and Colm Meaney’s cop – there are two cops in the film, the other is Ian Hart – is so obliquely introduced, for several minutes I wondered where the hell he turned up from. Finally, I assumed he and Hart were City/county police, though which was which I‘m not too sure.

The cinematography is carried off with aplomb, the dialogue is neat and thankfully avoids cliché well, for which thank the Irish who unlike too many Yanks are less don’t necessarily choose the lowest possible common denominator ), the musical score is great (especially Jade Vincent’s songs which might or might not be originals) and the whole feel of LA in 1939 is also convincing. So why all the carping by reviewers on IMDb? It’s a tad puzzling.