'Motherless Brooklyn' A Review

Motherless Brooklyn is a neo-noir set in 1950's New York City based on the Jonathan Lethem novel of the same name. The film follows Lionel Essrog(writer/director Edward Norton) a private investigator with Tourettes as he unravels a convoluted plot his boss Frank Minna(Bruce Willis) disappears into.

Norton finds a good balance of heart, humor, and grit with the afflicted detective and it's bolstered by the parade of excellent actors that cameo and have supporting roles. Willis, although only briefly in the film, gives one of his most believable and nuanced performances in years. However Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Leslie Mann, Ethan Suplee, and Dallas Roberts are mostly all woefully underutilized and Willem Dafoe functions more as a conduit for exposition than an actual character. Alec Baldwin as the corporate heavy is perfectly cast and has some strong scenes but is burdened by two extensive monologues which are used primarily as the films explicit thesis rather than words the character would actually speak.

The set is perfectly period but some of the cinematography is not so much noir inspired as direct lifts from noir classics like Out Of The Past. The jazz score is effective at points but at others serves only as a boring drone to elongate already insufferably long transitions. There is some diegetic jazz performed in a club that really works but the score is so saturated by the melodious discordant moans of the saxophone the live performances don't pop like they should.

The big issue is the adaption itself, the film veers away from the book in its focus, shifting from the compelling lead character of Lionel Essrog, his quirks, personality, and past into a preachy, transparent, relatively clumsy allegory in corporate power and greed. A message that certainly resonates but in this context is bludgeoning and naive in its simplicity. It's not in question that writer/director/star Edward Norton has a passion for the source material but it becomes abundantly clear he desperately needed an editor on virtually every level of the production in order to avoid having the film become what it turned out to be, a muddy, relatively ineffective vanity project.

On it's own a mediocre somewhat self-righteous passion project from a great actor(his writing and director abilities are still TBD) but as an adaptation of a wonderful and weird novel it's a tedious misfire.

Stream It.