Motherless Brooklyn

Edward Norton has been attached to Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn novel for some time, predating even his 2000 directorial debut, KEEPING THE FAITH.  His persistence paid off, and a dream project saw the light of day.   Norton originally sought someone else to direct, including his FIGHT CLUB maestro David Fincher.  It is impossible not to wonder how much better this film would've been with a more seasoned director behind the wheel, but that is not the only issue.  Norton's adaptation is also somewhat messy, with too many seemingly unnecessary and repetitive scenes.   He wisely shifted the setting from the late '90s to the late '50s, when this story's themes of gentrification and its effects on the poor were becoming more widespread, though certainly not in its genesis.  It was also a good idea as Norton likes his characters to dress and speak like film noir gumshoes.

I'll bet every director wants to shoot a mid century NYC noir with fedoras and jazz clubs.  Many films shot in this period were forgiven for lackluster scripts because the rhythms and atmosphere were so rich.  Norton, sorry to say, does not get such a pass.  His MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN is a long, sometimes dull slog through the boroughs without enough to really hold interest.  It's both simple and difficult to explain why.  A lot of it, I suspect, is because Norton, who has repeatedly proven himself a fine actor, may not possess that mysterious hard to quantify genius that certain directors just have.  Folks like Fincher, P.T Anderson, Wes Anderson, Scorsese, the Coens, and even Barrett Miller, who was also one of Norton's original choices.  Many actors have tried and not quite gotten it.  Like Clooney.  And Jack Nicholson, who gave it three failed attempts.

Our would-be auteur plays Lionel Essrog, an odd fellow who works for a detective agency and suffers Tourette Syndrome, for which he is forever apologizing.  He turns his head and screams things like "Tits on a Tuesday!" and "Giant faggot munchkin meat!"  Accurate behavioral tics or otherwise, this allows to actor to, in my opinion, show off a bit.  I'm not sure what this affliction brings to the character, or the movie.  It's often distracting, and of course maybe we should feel guilty for chuckling at times.  But he has a steel trap memory and some smarts in that "head full of broken glass", leading him through a typically byzantine web of corruption and secrets as he investigates the murder of his mentor/boss, Frank (Bruce Willis, apparently also Norton's real life mentor).  The old noirs always had complex plotlines, as did the later films which tipped their hats to them.  Including CHINATOWN, which this film also clearly emulates but falls far short of capturing its magic.  Here, the labyrinth is a bit tired and tiresome.

Some big names in the cast.  Alec Baldwin and Willem Defoe are always worth watching but neither contributes anything stellar to his underwritten role.  Strangely, also over written.  That baffling dichotomy describes MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN well, under- and overbaked.  For the latter, I kept wondering why Norton ramped up the intensity in scenes where a quieter approach would've been more effective.  A moment between Norton and Defoe in an apartment had me almost laughing out loud at its frantic pace, complete with overbearing scoring.  The film's opening is also confusingly jittery in its rapid fire dialogue and editing.  Creative choices I just didn't understand.

The production design is excellent.  Dick Pope's cinematography is mostly sharp.  Thom Yorke, interestingly enough, contributes a decent song.  There are two actors from The Wire here, which was entertaining for me as I'm deep into Season 3 at the time of this review.  Michael Kenneth Williams, as "Trumpet Man", gets the better, showier role.  Additionally, I liked Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Laura, a young activist for the urban poor who finds herself at the center of a powderkeg of corruption.  Norton acquits himself fairly well as Lionel, and I admire his efforts to make a moody, sometimes dreamlike homage, which does sport a handful of truly lovely moments, but I must count MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN as an overlong, unfocused, and quickly forgotten misfire.  An unfortunate footnote in cinema history.