Hey folks, Harry here with another installment of Sundance madness from Castor - who wasn't as big a fan of THE SINGING DETECTIVE as our last review, but says the film grows on you the longer you sit with it in your head. Which is a very good thing and could mean that on repeat viewings it can become one of those dastardly fave films. We'll see. Anyway, here ya go...
Hey Harry,
Back earlier than I thought with two more reviews. Since I'm seeing so many
films, I'll be trying to send these over to you as fast as I can. For now,
here are my takes on The Singing Detective and People I Know.
The Singing Detective (3 out of 5)
Director – Keith Gordon
Writer – Dennis Potter
Cast – Robert Downey Jr., Robin Wright Penn, Jeremy Northam, Katie Holmes, and Mel Gibson
The Singing Detective is one of the more bizarre films chosen as the Park City premiere for Sundance. That is not to say it is a bad film, nor does it mean it is a great one; just one that may take some time afterwards to think upon before you can really reflect an opinion.
Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a novelist currently spending time in critical condition at a hospital, completely covered with a devastating psoriasis and enough problems of his own stubbornness and drugs that cause him to have intense hallucinations. The story interweaves with his memory of past work he has written entitled ‘The Singing Detective’ set up like a serious film noir and his remembrance of a past childhood after his mother had an affair. Nicola (Robin Wright Penn) appears to be someone trying to be there for him, but his own paranoia leaves him to believe otherwise as his sanity bends from allowing him to tell fiction from reality half the time. Dan explains to Dr. Gibbons (Mel Gibson) his problems and the story begins to set its path when Dan is ready to put the pieces of his past and his work back into focus to remember who he really is.
The film also uses a lot of lip-synching musical numbers to reflect on how our culture can be raised off memorable tunes that have always stuck with us throughout our lives. Some of these can be clever as Nurse Mills (Katie Holmes) cover of ‘Mr. Sandman,’ to absolutely wonderful and memorable moments as the ‘Three Steps’ segment with Dr. Gibbons, to just downright weird and oddball like the first number. You have to see these moments for yourself to really understand how they work with the film, but this is just another way for Dennis Potter and Keith Gordon to mix genres somewhat successfully.
Dennis Potter wrote this screenplay a couple of years before his death and the film has been moved around between big name directors and actors for quite sometime. To declare Keith Gordon the right director for this film may remain questionable to some, but he does somehow manage to pull off moments with a great entertainment value. This is up for the true Dennis Potter fans to decide.
The ensemble cast is very appealing throughout. The two that standout the most are Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson. Both turn in roles unlike any they have ever done before and they shine here as well as they have in many films in the past. Due to Dan Dark’s condition throughout most of the film, Downey Jr. spends a majority of the time hardly able to move a muscle but he is still as interesting as he was when he played Charlie Chaplin. Mel Gibson is almost unrecognizable in his bald, over-the-hill role of the doctor trying to help Dan through his paranoia. The scenes between both of them are when the film works at its best and will hold the attention better for some audience members who think the film might be too strange.
The Singing Detective is a film that you have to let grow on you for a
couple hours after seeing it. The more time that I have spent after viewing
it, I find myself admiring it more and more.
People I Know (2 out of 5)
Director – Daniel Algrant
Writer – Jon Robin Baitz
Cast – Al Pacino, Kim Basinger, Tea Leoni, Ryan O’Neel, Richard Schiff, and Bill Nunn
If People I Know weren’t a premiere at Sundance, I would have sworn I had just seen a test screening of an uncompleted film whose only virtue is another good performance by Al Pacino.
Explaining the plotline is a difficult task of itself as the movie seems to have no idea what it wants to be. Eli Wurman (Pacino) is a New York press agent who helps deal with the problems of celebrities and politicians around the city. On the first night, Eli has to deal with Jilli Hopper (Tea Leoni), a TV star whose pastime is spent smoking opium and taking ecstasy. Eli joins Jilli at one of her Wall Street parties and later passes out in her bathroom to catch glimpses of her being murdered that may involve a political scandal. On the next day, the story switches directions by including a semi- love story between Eli and Victoria Gray (Kim Basinger), one of his only clients that seem to really respect him. Then the story heads in another direction when Eli tries to convince a jewish politician (Richard Schiff) to have a meeting with a reverend (Bill Nunn) that would hopefully set peace among them and help his career from collapsing.
Either the screenplay by Jon Robin Baitz went through so many rewrites that it lost focus of what story it was trying to follow or director Daniel Algrant couldn’t decide what stays and goes in the cutting room floor. It is one of these errors that makes this film break apart after a rather promising first act. The film can hold the viewers attention well thanks to Pacino’s scene stealing performance but at times his character switches from southern to New York accent that is even more noticeable than Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in Gangs of New York. Kim Basinger is wasted here with no material given to make her performance interesting in any sort of way.
Al Pacino fans may still enjoy this film. But even when his performance has its great moments, Pacino can’t save People I Know from being a disappointment.
Keith Gordon was the only person in attendance for The Singing Detecive, and no one showed for People I Know. Keith seemed to be one of the nicest and approachable filmmakers since I saw Richard Kelly at the Donnie Darko premiere years back. Anways, I will be back late Tuesday with reviews for It's All About Love, A Decade Under the Influence, and Confidence.
Thanks,
'Castor
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