Edward Norton spent twenty years trying to bring Jonathan Lethem’s bestselling novel “Motherless Brooklyn” to the big screen. Lethem set his detective story in the 1990s but Norton takes liberties, adding new characters and moving the action to the 1950s, lending a retro “Chinatown” vibe to the proceedings.
Norton, wrote, produced, directed and also stars as Lionel Essrog, a gumshoe with Tourette syndrome and an obsessive-compulsive eye for the little details that solve cases. “It’s like I got glass in my brain,” he says. When Frank Minna (Bruce Willis), his mentor and only friend, is killed while investigating a case no one is surprised. His colleagues, Tony (Bobby Cannavale), Gilbert (Ethan Suplee) and Danny (Dallas Roberts), accept that death is an almost inevitable part of the job but Lionel thinks there is more to the story. He is convinced Frank was about to blow the lid off a conspiracy involving Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin), a ruthless politician who clears out African American communities to make way for redevelopment. “There’s something going down,” says Lionel, “and it’s big, and they were not happy about what he found.” His sleuthing leads him to Randolph’s hinky brother (Willem Dafoe), community activist Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and a tale of corruption, lust and power where everyone is at risk.
Norton has created a detailed noir with “Motherless Brooklyn” that, while engaging, overstays its welcome in a long, drawn out conclusion. Terrific performances (there is some capitol A acting happening here), effective dialogue and anxiety-inducing music plus great 1950s era flourishes (even if Baldwin does smoke a recent vintage American Spirit cigarette in closeup) entertain the eyes and ears but as Lionel uncovers clues we are drawn further into a rabbit hole of murky motives, many of which are left dangling by the time the end credits roll. It’s an ambitious movie that feels meandering and overstuffed with plot.
It does, however, have its high notes. Norton is careful in his portrayal of a person with Tourettes and while he may have an extreme case of the syndrome it is never used as a gag or a gimmick. Instead it’s a sympathetic representation of a person with neurological tics making his way through life.
As for Baldwin, it’s hard to not see echoes of his Donald Trump impression in Moses Randolph. He’s an aggressive anything-to-win type who plays the power game to the disadvantage of anyone who gets in his way. It’s a big, blustery performance and one of the film’s pleasures.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw brings both vulnerability and steel to Laura, elevating her from a plot device to a living, breathing character.
“Motherless Brooklyn” is frustrating. It contains many interesting, thought provoking ideas on gentrification, some nicely rendered scenes and fine acting but errs on the side of self-indulgence to the point where the audience loses interest in its machinations.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the direct sequel to 1991’s “T2,” “Terminator: Dark Fate,” “Harriet,” the inspiring life story of American abolitionist and political activist Harriet Tubman and the Edward Norton noir “Motherless Brooklyn.”
“Framing John DeLorean,” the new hybrid documentary of the business life on the “Back to the Future” car creator, is a strange movie. Part traditional doc, complete with talking heads, archival photographs and even some FBI sting footage, it is also part docu-drama, featuring recreations with actor Alec Baldwin as DeLorean. Weirder still, Baldwin, all busy eyebrows and grey hair, offers up backstage observations on playing DeLorean. The carman was a bold character and portraying him on screen requires taking chances; most surprising of all is that it all works rather seamlessly.
It’s an interesting, ambiguously meta take on a man who was a bit of a hybrid himself. Part genius, part criminal, he was a person whose vision for reinvention extended from the futuristic car he designed to enhancing his own chin with plastic surgery to present the image he had of himself to the world, face first.
Directors and co-writers Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce provide the necessary background; how, at General Motors he spearheaded the creation of the GTO, Firebird, and Grand Prix, how he was a devoted father and how, as CEO of the DeLorean Motor Company, he revolutionized the car industry with his stainless steel sports cars and gave a massive shot in the arm to Northern Ireland’s economy during the Troubles. They also detail the sordid side, the FBI videotaped sting and arrest for trafficking cocaine, Phil Donahue’s public excoriation of the man and his business practices, a divorce and marriage to a much younger woman and bankruptcy.
The resulting portrait is layered look at an unknowable man. Archival footage reveals a person with plenty of bluster and hubris, someone whose grandiose ideas required extraordinary measures to come to fruition. Baldwin, under an inch of exaggerated prosthetic make-up, tries to contextualize DeLorean’s thought processes by applying an actor’s process to his subject’s thinking, but it is conjecture, not fact. Interesting conjecture, but conjecture all the same and not exactly the stuff of true documentary. More compelling are DeLorean’s daughter Kathryn and son Zach who lend open and honest analysis of their father. Zach even colorfully describes his father’s life as a Hollywood movie. “It’s got cocaine,” he says. “It’s got ‘bleeping’ hot chicks. It’s got sports cars, ‘bleeping’ Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The war on drugs. You got FBI agents and you got ‘bleeping’ hardcore drug dealers.”
“Framing John DeLorean” is a compellingly told story of a complex man, an Icarus, that asks but never answers the question at the core of DeLorean’s myth: Was he a cutthroat criminal or innovative genius or both? Instead it provides fodder for further exploration on the man and his methods.
A weekly feature from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at “Aladdin,” “Booksmart” and a doc about the life and times of a Canadian legend, “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.”
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with news anchor Marcia MacMillan have a look at the weekend’s big releases including the live action remake of “Aladdin,” the wild and wooly “Booksmart” and a doc about the life and times of a Canadian legend, “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.”
Richard has a look at the new movies coming to theatres, including Will Smith in the live action remake of “Aladdin,” the wild and wooly “Booksmart” and a doc about the life and times of a Canadian legend, “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind” with CFRA Morning Rush host Bill Carroll.
Music documentaries often veer into hagiography, looking back with rose coloured glasses at their subject. There are heaps of high praise in “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind,” a new career retrospective from co-directors Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni, but right from the outset it displays an honesty rare in authorized bios.
After a few bars of his chauvinistic ’60s hit “For Lovin’ Me” Lightfoot, watching vintage footage, demands it be shut off. “That’s a very offensive song for a guy to write who was married with a couple of kids,” he says before adding, “I guess I don’t like who I am.”
It’s a startling beginning to a movie that uses his music and a series of celebrity talking heads like Steve Earle, Sarah McLachlan, Geddy Lee, Anne Murray and Alec Baldwin, who helpfully adds, “This was a guy who sang poems,” to tell the story. Traditionally Lightfoot’s enigmatic approach to his biography has left many questions unanswered in the media. That doesn’t change much here, although he seems to have allowed open access to his home and is occasionally candid in the contemporary interviews. “I regret a lot of things,” he says near the end of the film. “I caused emotional trauma in people, particularly some women, the women I was closest to. I feel very, very badly about it.”
“If You Could Read My Mind” doesn’t skip over sensitive biographical points. His relationship with Cathy Evelyn Smith, a woman he loved who was later accused of killing John Belushi and the infidelities that marred his personal life are examined, although with a light touch that respects his privacy.
Supporting the storytelling are interestingly curated images. From rare clips of his early performances on the CBC and on the stages of Yonge Street taverns and Yorkville coffee houses and archival photos of the legendary, star-studded parties he threw at his Rosedale home, to old footage of his parents and behind-the-scenes images of his acting debut in Desperado—“You’ll never win an Oscar,” said co-star Bruce Dern, “but you’re fun to work with.”—the doc offers a comprehensive visual essay of Canadiana, Gordon Lightfoot style.
Ultimately the best documentary of Lightfoot’s storied life is his work, tunes like “Sundown” and “Rainy Day People” that suggest everything he has to say is in his songs. “Your personal experience and your emotional stress,” he says, “finds its way in by way of your unconscious mind over into the mind of reality and translates itself into your lyrics. And you don’t even know that is happening.”
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the all-singing, all-dancing, all-powerful Genie in the live action remake of “Aladdin,” the wild and wooly “Booksmart” and a doc about the life and times of a Canadian legend, “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.”
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel with news anchor Marcia MacMillan have a look at the weekend’s big releases including “Avengers: Endgame,” the message-movie “The Public,” written, directed, produced and starring Emilio Estevez and the Aretha Franklin documentary “Amazing Grace.”