Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Neil Jordan, Madman Entertainment.
An engrossing noir crime thriller, Marlowe is set in late 1930s Bay City placing the focus around a brooding, down-on-his-luck detective, Philip Marlowe, played by Liam Neeson.
Aged 70, Neeson (Schindler’s List) has teamed again with his Michael Collins director Neil Jordan, to play the title role in the film which is adapted not from a Chandler book, but on the novel The Black-Eyed Blonde by John Banville, sanctioned by Chandler’s estate.
Marlowe is hired to find the former lover of a glamorous heiress, Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger, Unknown), a small-time drug dealer and lothario named Nico Peterson. Clare is the daughter of a wealthy, well-known former movie star, Dorothy (Jessica Lange, King Kong).
At first it appears to be a simple case of a missing person, involving a man of doubtful ethics. Complications quickly ensue. The disappearance is the first twist in a series of confusing events, and soon Marlowe is entangled in a deadly investigation and web of lies that he’s determined to bring to light.
Despite Marlowe’s sardonic remarks and sharp one-liners, there’s a sense not only of resolve but of responsibility. The costume and set designers have been kept busy with period details for the large cast.
Marlowe, listlessly played by Neeson, is the hardened private detective invented by Raymond Chandler in a series of stories and novels mostly published in the 1930s and 1940s. It was a role played by a few: Humphrey Bogart in the 1946 version of The Big Sleep (directed by Howard Hawks); in 1973 by Elliott Gould in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye; and the second version of Chandler’s 1939 novel titled The Big Sleep, this time directed by Michael Winner in 1978 starring Robert Mitchum as the private eye.
- Marlowe will screen in cinemas on 18 May
