Geezer Pleaser

A movie about Philip Marlowe (2023), starring Liam Neeson and directed by Neil Jordan? Of course, I wanted to see this.

It takes place in a sunny but tobacco-colored LA in 1939. Beautiful, wealthy Diane Kruger wants Marlowe, Neeson. to find her lover, a studio hanger-on who has disappeared. Neeson heads out to his bungalow, which he finds empty. A curmudgeonly neighbor, who doesn't trust anyone, tells him everything he knows, including about a couple of "beaners" in a hot car with a Tijuana paint job have been looking for him too.

It doesn't take Neeson long to find out that the lover was killed by a hit-and-run outside the fancy Curbana (which I heard as Cubana, but I had subtitles on) club. His head was crushed beyond identification. So he visits Kruger at home at her mother's mansion. She is faded movie star Jessica Lange who hangs out with studio mogul Mitchell Mullen. 

He heads for the Curbana Club and meets it's manager, a sleazy Danny Huston. He learns a lot, and has lunch with Lange, who seems to be competing with her daughter. And so on.

There's a lot more to this story, but I'm not sure much is that interesting. There is a legit mystery, and it plays out the way a mystery is supposed to. But what we're really interested in is:

• How neo-noir is the atmosphere?
• How much meta-, self-consciousness is there?

F or the first, I'd say it's great. It's a bit more 70s/80s than 40s/50s (more neo than noir?), but still fine. Neeson has a tired hangdog look that has just the right amount of Bogart. For the second, I would have started out saying, not at all - Jordan didn't seem to be winking at us. Of course, the neighbor who doesn't trust anyone but spills his guts to a stranger, a private dick at that, seemed a little silly. Well, it gets sillier. The final scene involves a burning props warehouse where you can spot a Maltese falcon. And in case you miss it, Neeson catalogs the contents of the warehouse as including "the ark of the Covenant, the Maltese Falcon..." OK, Jordan's winking at us. My theory is that he started out straight and got bored, and started camping it up. 

So, as an affectionate (semi-) sendup of noirs, this didn't really work. Just too serious. As a serious movie, it didn't quite work either - too campy or formulaic. But as a geezer pleaser, I (a geezer) think it does work. Geezer pleasers appeal to grampy on the recliner, snoozing away an afternoon with a scotch and water. They (we) want rugged older men, hot women, young and old, light jazz on the soundtrack, some action and a plot that doesn't require much brain power. 

Or is that just me?