Review of The Singing Detective (2003) by Connie R — 14 Jun 2008

This film had two major problems:

1. It's a film adaptation of a series. It was too much material to cram into 109 minutes. The parallel noir detective story was not given enough screen time to function as a story on it's own and just wound up being some well shot noir scenes that failed to be a compelling side narrative. Quinten could have done it but Keith Gordon failed. The stylistic elements of a great Noir film were there (cinematography, cool characters, great hats, great suits, great narration, etc.) but the story wasn't developed enough and they were too far apart to be strung together.

2. Downey's character's affliction was too over done. OK I get it psoriatic arthropathy is a painfully crippling disease, but I found myself so disgusted by the special FX makeup that I had to take a step back and constantly remind myself "It's just a movie and that's just makeup... It's not real" just to keep my lunch down or, accept it and allow myself to believe it and be completely disgusted so much that I almost had to fast forward through the hospital scenes. Either way, to put it simple, the special FX makeup was distracting from the narrative and not necessary. Downey did a fantastic job acting like he was in excruciating pain so I didn't need the gruesome FX makeup to make me believe it.

In a typical noir fashion, there were some good scenes that were purely dialog driven and the film was cast very well with many actors that look great in noir style cinematography which was done well but could have been done better.