The Singing Detective

It would be hard not to be interested in viewing this film considering everything involved from the great cast to the origin of the script and it's writer. Story is about Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr) who is in the hospital suffering from a hideous skin disease that covers his entire body. Dan is a pulp fiction writer and while his pain ridden body lies in a hospital bed his hallucinations usually end up in song and dance routines or of himself as a Humphrey Bogart-like character.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** Dan is also paranoid that his wife Nicola (Robin Wright Penn) is cheating and plotting something against him but he also fantasizes about two hit men (Adrien Brody & Jon Polito) that are trying to kill him. Dan is sarcastic and downright insulting to everyone around him and it seems to stem from his memories of his mother Betty (Carla Gugino) so part of his therapy is to talk to the hospital psychiatrist Dr. Gibbon (Mel Gibson) who attempts to get at the core of his problems which may mean that his skin condition might be psychosomatic.

This film is directed by Keith Gordon (Waking the Dead) who along with producer Mel Gibson have assembled a good solid cast that helps the viewer get through the films duration because the script makes it's point early then meanders on for another hour. Downey has always been one of our more interesting and talented actors and here he's extremely well cast because the character he plays seems to mirror his own personal demons. Downey has that rare gift of taking any sort of material no matter how elaborate and make it watchable and he does it here although after about an hour the films premise grows increasingly tiresome. Dennis Potter is credited with the script and reports say he finished it before his death in 1994 although it has sat around for almost 10 years until someone decided to film it. The BBC series from 1986 was hours and hours long and you get the feeling that those responsible for this condensed effort had difficulty figuring out what to leave in and what to take out. I look at this film as an interesting try but one that loses it's spark of originality about halfway through.

Hey, I liked it. There were good things: Gibson unrecognizable as the shrink, Downey at his best, whacky story, pastiches of film noir, mind mystique, Touches of Freud, Jung... but it's not perfect. Some confusions persist: Downey as the frustrated, nonintrospective, horny writer whose imagination has taken over his life is often whining. His round-heeled mother has few redeeming features, the shifts between real and irrealis is jerky..., and so on. It's easy to find fault with a complex tale and one in which there are so many loose ends and ravelings but what do you take away with you when it's all said and done? Reading through the comments here, I came across the usual "I didn't like this..." and "I didn't like that..." comments. OK. Not every one likes pistachio ice cream. I love to see, hear and consider other views because it makes me reexamine my own impressions. Of interest to me was the recurring theme of confusion in these commentaries. I shared much of that because of the less than smooth transitions in the switches to irreality and the flashbacks. In films where the observers are given admittance to the inside of the performer's head, must be a melange of images, themes and mini-scenes because, alas, that's the way the mind works. So, from an audience perspective, it works for some and won't for others because, alas again, that is the way OUR minds work. Sorry to wax so psychiatrically but films like this one, as imperfect as it is, can tell us a lot about ourselves.

The Singing Detective is a movie which defies description or explanation. Any attempt at a summation of the plot would be futile. It's a comedy, it's a musical, it's a mystery, it's film noir. Well, it has elements of all of those things anyway but the end product does not fit neatly into any category. Structure? The movie really has none. This means that, while it may be interesting, it often comes across as somewhat incoherent. Much of the movie seems to take place inside the main character's head. But that character is the most unreliable of narrators. He doesn't have any grasp on what is real so how can the audience? This is a movie you just have to try to figure out for yourself.

Robert Downey, Jr. plays the main character, Dan Dark. Dan is a writer of cheap, lurid detective novels. Right now he finds himself laid up in the hospital with the worst case of psoriasis you've ever seen. He's in terrible pain, pretty much completely incapacitated and quite possibly losing his mind. He lapses into a fantasy world in which he is the main character in his own novel. But characters from the novel start to appear in the real world. Or do they? Are we still inside Dan Dark's mind? If so, how do we get out because inside Dan Dark's mind is not a particularly pleasant place to be.

This carries on throughout the film, real world and fantasy worlds colliding. Even what seems obviously real may not be. We meet Dan's wife, played enigmatically by Robin Wright. She's cheating on him. Or does Dan just think she is so that is what is presented as reality? In flashbacks Carla Gugino plays Dan's mother. But then she shows up as an entirely different person in Dan's delusions. Mel Gibson plays a rather strange psychologist who may well be able to help Dan if only Dan actually wanted to be helped. Maybe Dan prefers to retreat into his own mind, into his fantasy world. Does this all come together in the end? Not really. You're left largely wondering what in the world it was that you just saw. But confusing though it may be the movie still manages to be pretty entertaining. Downey turns in an excellent performance. Wright and Gibson are very good as well. Adrien Brody and Katie Holmes are among the performers who are solid in smaller roles.

The movie is well-acted all around and the story draws you in. But as you go deeper and deeper there is the sense the movie spirals a little bit out of control. Some structure would have helped. But if told in entirely straightforward fashion the story would not have been nearly as interesting. This movie is unique. Some will love it. Some will hate it. It is a movie which was an interesting experiment. Maybe you'll appreciate what was attempted here, maybe you won't. Everyone is going to have their own unique personal reaction to this movie. To each their own.

I saw this film as part of a process of educating myself about the career of Robert Downey Jr after seeing his remarkable performance in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and realising to my shame that I could recall seeing him in Chaplin but not much else. I have been working my way through his films and I am staggered at the range and depth of his talent, even in mediocre films (and he has made a few). But one can only agree with New Yorker critic Anthony Lane who wrote recently 'I'll watch him in anything'.

I disagree vehemently with those who've compared this Singing Detective unfavourably with the earlier version. I saw the original on television here in Australia when it was first screened, and it was indeed a great piece of television (though I preferred Pennies from Heaven which launched the international career of Bob Hoskins and was given a bad Hollywood remake). It's important to remember that Dennis Potter himself wrote this script, specifically for a shorter film version, and was keen to see it made. The dissenters should rent the DVD and listen to director Keith Gordon's commentary if they are in any doubt that it is faithful to the spirit of Potter's intentions and his written word.

The casting of Downey is a stroke of genius. Because he is a younger and very attractive man, the gross disfigurement of his character with psoriasis is infinitely more poignant than when the part was played by Michael Gambon - even when the Dan Dark character is behaving like a total bastard. His performance is extraordinary: the sublety of his mood changes and facial reactions, and the pathos he draws out of this trapped character (without a hint of schmaltz) just leap off the screen (even more remarkable given that for some of the time he was wearing makeup that took hours to apply and initially caused a bad skin reaction;and that he was under threat of returning to jail on drugs charges, which is why the film had to be shot in LA rather than Chicago - he was not allowed to leave LA).

I guess Downey's messy private life is one of the reasons he's such an interesting and complex actor. One can only hope that other brave producers will take a punt give him the big meaty parts that his talent deserves.

Don't let the nay sayers dissuade you from seeing this film; it's great. Mel Gibson is (thankfully, for me) unrecognisable and the scenes between him and Downey are terrific. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent.

I picked this movie up because I read the story on the back cover and found it interesting and because I like Downey. I was prepared to watch something different (from most movies I watched this year) and in that regard I was not disappointed. The movie was indeed different, the story was interesting, acting was very good (in most cases) the soundtrack was excellent....so why didn't I enjoy it?

When the movie finished I was left disappointed. I couldn't find any real flaws in any aspect of the film (direction was above average, acting was great, music was very good and appropriate) but still I did not feel like I have just watched a great movie. I did not hate it but I didn't like it either. More than a couple of times I was tempted to hit fast forward.

And after a while I realized what was the problem with this film. Every character (except Downey's character - and then only to some extend) is left undeveloped and every relationship in the film is also left undeveloped. Most parts of the story are left unfinished or are presented in so little detail that they become uninteresting or irrelevant. It almost feels as if the original duration of the film was 4 hours and they had to cut bits and pieces to make it shorter.

All in all, I feel this could have been a great movie, but something happened along the way and the result was an average film. Worth watching it once, if only for Downey and an out-of-character Gibson, but that's it.

P.S. Please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes. I'm not used to writing in English.