Jonathan
Lethem’s 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn,
a New York based modern-day hard-boiled detective story about a small-town
private eye stricken with Tourette’s syndrome on a quest for the man who
murdered his mentor, became a long gestating dream project of the film’s
writer-producer-director-lead actor Edward Norton. Having only directed one film with the 2000 romantic
comedy Keeping the Faith, the project
sat on the shelf for the next two decades with Norton garnering a reputation in
Hollywood as a difficult or demanding actor.
Circa
2019 however after a small hiatus from the public eye before the actor/director’s
own production company Class 5 Films funded the project, Edward Norton has
finally realized Motherless Brooklyn onto
the silver screen as a 1950s-set period film noir of sorts. Co-starring Bruce Willis, Ethan Suplee, Alec Baldwin,
Leslie Mann and Willem Dafoe, the picture is a star-studded odyssey which ala-Chinatown presents its protagonist with
a mystery containing almost boundless twists and turns leading him towards the
upper echelon of society’s most powerful men.
If
there’s a central criticism to bring against Norton’s crime investigation epic
we’ve seen many times over in the time-honored tradition of shaggy-dog film
noir and edgier detective stories, it’s the languid pacing which amounts to a
sprawling near two-and-a-half hour running time. For the story’s topic of urban development
threatening the stability of local communities, Norton’s film addresses this
topic with the urgency of a promenade.
What keeps the audience from drifting away however is Norton’s screen
presence and always solid acting though some will find his Oscar-fishing
performance of a detective with a variety of tic disorders a little grating.
In
terms of production design by Beth Mickle, the film sports an excellent
attention to 1950s American period detail with The Illusionist cinematographer Dick Pope giving the noir-ish
proceedings a somewhat somber visual schema.
Then there’s the original score by Spider-Man:
Into the Spider-Verse composer Daniel Pemberton which bears that kind of
sleepy saxophone Jazz melancholy synonymous with noir, lending a moody flavor
to Norton’s detective story. Naturally being a film noir, the film is rife with Norton's voiceover narration which in itself is a cliche but under Norton's lead we hardly mind.
Overall
Motherless Brooklyn is a good,
refreshing dose of modern film-noir which we’ve seen many times before yet the
cast keeps things engaging and Norton’s direction of the crime investigation
thriller genre is solid. Though a bit on
the long side with areas where the belt could have been tightened a little,
there’s a decent crime drama and character driven piece here prominently
featuring one of the industry’s most gifted performers. Motherless
Brooklyn serves up familiar terrain for most moviegoers but Norton’s
direction and acting more than makes it worth your while.
--Andrew Kotwicki