Review of Mortdecai (2015) by Dawdlingpoet — 27 Nov 2021

This is a comedy crime film, a parody or satire of crime mystery films, featuring themes including fraud, forgery, russian criminals and the British aristocracy. Its very much a character driven film, with the titular character being very much a bizarre, eccentric sort. One of my first thoughts about it was that it seemed an exercise in sheer smugness by Depp (who plays Mortdecai). Certainly his character appears to have the upper hand. I can understand why it gets a bad crit but thankfully, for me personally, I found it to be one of the 'so zany its really quite amusing-ly good' type films. Put it this way - if you take the plot seriously and expect a 100% sharp and witty, original film, then I've little doubt you'll be disappointed but if your ok with watching a film with exaggerated characters, a definite predictability regarding plot development and your ok with some bizarre instances of toilet humour and the like, then you may also find this to be a relatively amusing and entertaining watch. I feared I wouldn't be bothered to watch the rest of it, by how cheesy and smug it seemed after the first twenty minutes or thereabouts but I did find myself **** with some of the truly random and bizarre subjects of humour, once it got going. One such example is a line referring to Mortdecai's collection of old cheeses being a 'weapon of biological warfare'. Its just as well there is no such thing as smell-o-vision in relation to films - well, not yet anyway!.

There is narration provided by various characters, all having a rather exaggerated accent (or dialect) but then most of the characters both look and sound somewhat exaggerated, in terms of their demographic (race/social class etc.). It does refer to stereotypes, having a definite 'go' at upper class English types. Mortdecai being the epitome of a British upper class aristocrat, full of airs and graces even in the most unlikely situations, I didn't much care for the character at the start of the film but as the plot (if slowly) developed, I started to warm to him somewhat. Partly why may be due to the fact that the character both provides narration at times (as mentioned earlier) and directly speaks to the audience/viewer at times, as if implying that he knows its all a bit silly and that he doesn't take the film seriously in the slightest. I think that if you take it too seriously, it'd be hard not to be appauled by the cringe-y accents and everything.

Cast wise, Johnny Depp plays the titular character, with his Jack Sparrow-esque suave, assertive and smug persona very much at the fore. In this comedy role, he almost comes across as a bit of a Jim Carrey type, in seeming quite hyperactive and enigmatic. He isn't entirely likeable, at first certainly but his eccentricity did end up with me warming to him somewhat. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Mortdecai's partner, Johanna, She does well at playing a hoity-toity housewife - it was amusing enough hearing her say 'the painting of the Duchess was in Bunny's loo!'. I also particularly enjoyed Ewan MacGregor, who played Martland, a police inspector. I quite enjoyed his character - his is a supporting role and his character is a bit less exaggerated compared to Mortdecai and Johanna. Other cast members present include Jeff Goldblum as Krampf (an art dealer), Paul Bettany as Mortdecais assisant, Jock and Olivia Munn as Georgina. Paul Whitehouse (of The Fast Show fame) also appears in a supporting role, as an italian car mechanic called Spinoza.

This film features some relatively good camerawork, with some quick and sharp movements and thus a variety of angles used to heighten the tension and make scenes seem quicker and flashier in general. The musical pieces played are fairly generic pieces, mostly incidental music, what you'd expect to hear in a crime/mystery film - mostly instrumental pieces, with strings and woodwind instruments, which add either/or a slightly spooky feel or a sense of slickness to the scene its played in.

As a parody/satire film this is certainly a pleasingly silly film - think of settings similar to The Grand Budapest Hotel, with the main character more remiscent of The Mask and storylines perhaps more like those of the Pink Panther films of a few decades back and you wouldn't be a million miles away. I suppose if I ignore my earlier mention of it relying on stereotypes and refer to the parody element, then you could say that its good at pointing fun at the upper classes but im not entirely sure if everyone would necessarily regard it as a parody as such.

Its certainly an easy watch (you don't need to pay a great deal of attention to it), its a silly watch, one that some may quite enjoy and some may find having their head in their hands while they cringe throughout. That depends on personal taste and suchlike but for me, I found it a relatively entertaining and amusing watch for the hour and three quarters running time it lasts for.