At the weekend I rewatched Motherless Brooklyn, a good old fashioned P.I. noir mystery, written, directed, produced by and starring Edward Norton. It follows firmly in the footsteps of some of the great private investigation based Noirs of the past;
The Maltese Falcon from the 1940s, Hitchcock's wonderful Vertigo from the 50s, Polanski's supreme Chinatown from the 70s, and things like L.A Confidential more recently. That is quite a list of films to take influence from, and although this doesn't reach the same heights, I liked it as much as the first time I saw it about a year ago, which is a fair amount.
It is set in a somewhat bright yet drab mid 20th century America (now I think about it, possibly my favourite setting for films) and follow's Norton's character, tourrettes suffering P.I. Lionel, as his boss and mentor, played by Bruce Willis, is murdered by a gang of heavies, apparently after a disagreement. Lionel sets about solving the mystery and taking revenge, which he does, kind of.
In films that tell this type of story, the minor details should really matter, like the way a line or conversation is delivered, so that multiple viewings reveal more - the classics of the genre certainly achieve this, but I'm not sure Motherless Brooklyn does. The classics also offer surprising reveals and revelations (in most cases) as the mystery is being pieced together and although the plot wasn't utterly predictable, there was nothing to really shock. There are some other minor drawbacks - things come a bit too easily for him on his journey - everything fits neatly. And, it seems strange to say, but I found there may be a bit too much of the main character. All of this put it probably in the lightweight category, however, I found it interesting, about as intelligent as it needs to be, entertaining, well acted and above all great looking - it does a good job of visually capturing the time and place. In this case, Norton takes him time enough to make the journey itself the main event, instead of everything hanging on a resolution. It is not rated particularly highly, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is reassessed in years to come as, not as an all time great, but a worthy addition to the canon.
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