A very enjoyable modern day film noir filled with an incredible sense of atmosphere.
How much you enjoy this film will fully depend on how much you like film noir. This film is a love letter to the genre in many ways. The film not only avoids having any fast paced action scenes, but the majority of the film is very slow paced to allow us to soak up the atmosphere. Though this slow pace lasting for nearly two and a half hours might be too much for some, others like myself will delight in it. This film is soaking in atmosphere. Edward Norton's stylish direction as well as Dick Pope's cinematography give this film such a powerful and memorable look. As many modern film noirs have discovered there is something about New York that just works cinema-wise more than any other big city in the US. It just has a certain feeling and personality to it that is unlike any other major city. Helping extremely with this atmosphere is Daniel Pemberton's incredible jazz music score. Jazz music is often associated with film noir for a reason. The two fit together perfectly. Jazz music makes these films come to life in a way no other genre could. The music here is obviously inspired by jazz scores for pervious film noirs, but it never copies them, instead having its own sound.
Edward Norton is perfect in the main role. Playing a character with Tourette's Syndrome would cause many actors to overplay their part, turning the character into a caricature of a person with a disability. This never happens in this film. Anyone who has ever actually known someone with a disability will know that they are not defined by there disability. Instead it is only a very small part of who they actually are. That is definitely the way Norton plays this character, as a full human being who just happens to have this disability. He is often the smartest man in the room and the most complex character on screen. People underestimate him because of his disability but the more time we spend with him the more we understand what a remarkable person he is.
However it must be said that the story is often too complicated for its own good. There is no need for the sheer amount of twists and turns found in this story. This film could have cut some of this complexities out and have a shorter, but tighter movie. The movie also overuses the narration and can rely on it too much to give us information the film should have shown us.
If you are a fan of film noir, I am sure you will enjoy this movie. It may not be a masterpiece, but it delivers very well at giving us film noir fans exactly what we want.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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