The Singing Detective
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Movie Reviews of The Singing Detective
Movie Review: Well-Acted but incoherent
Summary: 2 Stars
Dan Dark, writer of noir, Raymond Chandler-esque Detective fiction is suffering from a severe skin condition that has made him virtually a prisoner in his own body. Mentally, he dwells in the realm of his novel, The Singing Detective, where he is a suave, hard-boiled yet sensitive PI. When forced to interact with the real world, Dark is obnoxious, angry and abusive. When his condition fails to improve, his doctor prescribes psychotherapy. Using his book as a key to his past, his therapist hopes to unlock Dark's subconcious and set him on the road to healing.There were several good things about this movie. The concept had a great deal of potential to be depthful and interesting. The film-making was pretty interesting. The performances were remarkable and Mel Gibson's make-up job was astounding. But the movie as a whole didn't work for me because the overall story lacked a coherent dynamic structure. The pieces worked, but they didn't fit together and I felt that some of them were missing. I don't mind having to fill in a few blanks in a movie, but in _The Singing Detective_ I had the constant and unpleasant feeling that I wasn't quite sure what was going on.
The movie moves through three storylines: the real world of Dan Dark in the hospital, the fantasy world of Dan Dark, The Singing Detective, and the memory world of Dark's childhood. I didn't think the Detective world was given enough attention. The story that was happening there was not entirely clear and there was little internal logic. This frustrated me because it seemed to me that the detective world was supposed to be the place where the other two worlds met. But since it had no solidity, it was only a tenuous bridge and the viewer was left to make up a lot. I would have liked it better if the filmmaker had chosen to spend more time with the detective world and less time in the hospital. Also, far too much time and detail was spent in Dark's memories. By the time we got to the big revelation scene, it was redundant because we already knew what Dark was going to say. There was no sense of climax, and the closure seemed contrived.
The murky story was muddied even further by a subplot that seemed to deal with Dark's paranoia about his present day life. I think this could have been left out. Often there was no clear distinction made between what was really happening in the present-day world and what wasn't. All in all, the film had such a surreal feel that, not only was it difficult to tell what was going on, it was difficult to care.
Watching _The Singing Detective_ was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that have intersting shapes but, when joined, give a picture of a Rorshach ink blot. What the viewer gets out of it is probably his own business. What I got was bored.
Movie Review: Some Nice Visuals, But Too Short Time for More Imagination
Summary: 2 Stars
So many reviewers so far point out that 'The Singing Detective' is inferior to the 1986 TV mini-series starring Michael Gambon. On the other hand, there are some who defend this newer Robert Downey Jr. version on the ground that it has its own charms, mostly about its quirky nature. I happened to be interested in the film after seeing the cast without knowing the background history of the film including all about Dennis Potter. Now I've seen it, and I was intrigued with the unique world at first, but sorry, that didn't last very long.
Actually, I'm impressed with certain things. No matter what people say, Robert Downey Jr. is a fantastic actor, and he shows it as Dan Dark in a hospital bed. His pains hiding behind his arrogance can be easily felt thanks to his powerful acting and good make-up jobs. I have nothing against the other cast which is also impressive -- from reliable Robin Wright Penn to Mel Gibson with a bald wig on his head. Even Katie Holmes is good, but perhaps the truth is, she can be good if she wants to.
But even if you have not seen the original TV like me, you would soon realize the defects of the film. Im short it needs more time. So many characters are made to appear in Dark's two worlds, reality and fantasy, that they are all reduced to insignificant cyphers. Alfre Woodard appears fleetingly, and is gone. Adrian Brody and Jon Polito appear as Hoods, and ... what did they do? Nothing that I can remember. Jeremy Northam? Where is he?
But more fundamental trouble is the relation between Dark and the doctor played by Gibson. For all Gibson's good acting as oddball Dr. Gibbon, Dark's psychological process to find the true problem about his over-aggressive mind through his ficional noir world looks too contrived here, and is given too short time to convince us. Even the musical sections, though themselves good, look mercilessly cut short. Director Keith Gordon does his best, but if you see too short musical parts (Danny and the Juniors' hit 'At the Hop' for example) it is obvious that the film's budget was limited.
I'm not telling you 'The Singing Detective' is a bad film. Rather, it is an example showing that with a wiser decision of the filmmakers, this could have been much better. Why not longer version instead of just 110 minutes? But perhaps, like Billy Bob Thornton's 'All the Pretty Horses,' the exectives would not allow that.
Movie Review: Confused and all over the place
Summary: 2 Stars
Because of the strong list of actors in this movie, "The Singing Detective" could have been an absolute gem, but it was simply bogged down by the writing. From start to finish this script seems confused, as though the writer was trying to cram way too many things into one simple film. This movie is about Dark, a novelist laid up in hospital with a severe skin condition. Here he hallucinates about being a private detective in the 30's or 40's, where the story is even more muddled by strange musical lip-synching that hardly advances the plot.
The acting here is strong, as Robert Downey Jr. is in his usual fine form, going from a film noir detective to a bitter patient in the present day. Katie Holmes and Robin Wright Penn also deliver strong performances as a nurse and Dark's wife, respectively. The true achievement in this film is the performance of Mel Gibson, who plays an eccentric psychotherapist for Dark. He plays the doctor with an impressive quirkiness that I thought was not possible from the usually wooden Gibson.
I think this movie could have really been great, and there are elements here that glimmer with hope, but it all falls flat because of the overbearing script. Had the writer been more focused, or sure of what he wanted to see up on the screen, then this movie would have been alot better than it was.
Movie Review: disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
Despite supporting roles from the very talented and beautiful Carla Gugino, and screen legend Mel Gibson...this movie seemed very weak to me- like Carla and Mel were in it just to lend some credibility to Robert Downey Jr. (who I guess is really tarnished by his drug abuse) I've never seen the t.v. series that this movie is loosely based on, and so I can't draw comparisons. I can say though, it was a very, very , very strange movie. One minute the tortured patient (Robert Downey) is surrounded by doctors, the next- they're all singing and dancing 'the hop' while the hospital room morphs into a dance floor. It then goes into some distasteful scenes with more Robert Downey as he investigates who he is- a patient or a detective from his own novel. Mel Gibson's tiny role as the psychotherapist was to help explore that. Carla Gugina's tiny role was as his mother in his earliest memories- whom he thought commited suicide, but is now figuring out she was murdered. If you're a fan of Mel Gibson or Carla Gugino, I would suggest strongly that you pass on this one.Movie Review: Not the usual Robert Downey, Jr.
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm a huge Robert Downey, Jr. fan, but this movie did not live up to my expectations. I found it tedious and boring for the most part. I guess every great actor has an occasional bad movie.