Where’s Marlowe?

Rating

Director

Daniel Pyne

Screenplay

John Mankiewicz, Daniel Pyne

Length

1h 37m

Starring

Migue Ferrer, John Livingston, Mos Def, Kevin Murphy, Allison Dean, Clayton Rohner, Elizabeth Schofield, Barbara Howard, Kirk Baltz, Migue Sandoval

MPAA Rating

R

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
Documentaries have not been a popular film medium among mainstream audiences for many years. Where’s Marlowe? attempts to nullify the stigma documentaries carry by mixing a documentary style with a fictional story.

John Livingston and Mos Def play A. J. Edison and Wilt Crawley, two blossoming filmmakers whose documentary debut is a film about the origin of New York’s water supply. Their next project is to document a private investigator, and in the process of making the film, they stumble upon a convoluted mystery surrounding an affair and those trying to conceal it.

Miguel Ferrer plays Joe Boone, the private investigator Edison and Crawley have chosen to follow. His partner, Murphy (John Slattery) wants nothing to do with the film and when he becomes a part of the mystery, Boone takes a personal interest in solving the crime.

The case becomes more complicated with each step and the documentary feel only helps confuse things. It’s increasingly popular for directors to combine styles hoping to bring new life to their work and larger audiences that might not otherwise flock to a single-genre film. However, if filmgoers aren’t interested in sitting down to watch a lengthy documentary, then they aren’t going to sit down and watch a dramatic movie that’s made like one.

The documentary format is heavy-handed and distracting here, and it’s not the only problem. The screenplay treats the subject like it’s a burgeoning mystery when it’s only a small, baffling story. The last 15 minutes are completely out of place after the climax. The characters never find their resolution despite a moderate attempt by the director.

Ferrer gives a convincing performance alongside Livingston and Def, but the character isn’t deep enough for the experienced actor. Livingston is much better than Def, but both are new actors and their performances aren’t nearly as deep as they need to be.

With a bit of tinkering, this film could have been much better. The biggest weaknesses are its pacing and its plot. The film runs only an hour and 40 minutes, but feels like a full three-hour documentary. Its slow pacing is due in part to the story. Good documentary-makers know you can never let the audience get bored. This is all the more true for dramatic films, but Marlowe is so slow that it’s difficult to enjoy the performances or the technique.

There’s a message about documentarians on the surface of Where’s Marlowe? The screenwriter has obviously contemplated the imaginary wall between documentary filmmakers and their subjects. Like Star Trek’s Prime Directive – a non-interference policy – directors know not to influence the subjects on the other side of their lenses. Edison and Crawley step away from their cameras to intervene, breaking a long-standing paradigm.

Without this subtext, Marlowe is just another film festival flunky with a flavourless formula. There are bad filmmakers and there are bad storylines. Daniel Pyne isn’t a bad director, just new; however with his writing credits, he should know better than to rely on style over substance.

Review Written

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