Crime de um Detetive

I have neither read the novel nor seen the original mini-series. A relative was enthralled with both, so seeing this listed on my cable guide I decided to give it a shot. I knew only the basic premise - that the film would be centered around a writer of pulp detective fiction who fantasizes about the lives of his characters as a way to escape his debilitating chronic skin disease. This was a good impression to enter this movie with, though far from complete. The 'singing detective' is the main character in Dan Dark's first novel, and an imaginary alter-ego existing in a seedy film-noir world of pulp fiction, in which Dark has encoded all of the traumas of his emotionally disturbing life. Meanwhile, Dark himself lies in a hospital bed incapacitated by some form of chronic leprosy and spreading a message of hate to everybody who dares to try to help him. The film focuses - though rather impressionistically - on Dan Dark's psychological journey during a prolonged hospital stay.

Without the background most viewers of this film might approach it with, I can only view it as an outsider, judging it only on its own merits. There are a few major problems which immediately come to mind. First - The Singing Detective is slated as a comedy. While I suppose some people might see it as a dark comedy, I am afraid that I found none of it funny whatsoever. Obnoxious, mean-spirited verbal violence does not amuse me. Second - though I do not have the insider perspective needed to support this idea (I haven't even read any IMDb reviews of this film), I suspect that the film leaves a lot of the development of its basic theme - of healing - out. Paradoxically, this problem seems to develop because of the nearly exclusive focus on Downey's deeply disturbed and paranoid character Dark, and his hospital antics. Yes, he's a very difficult patient - we get that right away - but is it necessary to drive it home scene after scene after scene? Downey's Dark is a blend of Woody Allen and Dustin Hoffman's Rainman, while his "Singing Detective" is a cold-fish hybrid of Humphrey Bogart, Bob Mitchum and all of the other noir detectives ever seen on the big screen. And he sings (this is a fact which is neither explained nor well-developed, but I am sure that the silly 1950s RnR tunes are the only venue for positive emotions the character allows himself). Downey's performances are, as usual, good, but they fail to sustain the entire film (which they are, unfortunately, asked to do). Mel Gibson, playing the hospital psychoanalyst, steals the show, despite his decidedly minor though important role. The rest - the pretty young nurse, the ambiguous wife, and the characters inhabiting Dark's fantasies and later his hallucinations are all well written and performed, but fail to compensate for the somewhat dull development of the central theme.

Good films based on unfamiliar literary works always make me want to read the original material (Master and Commander, The World According to Garp, and Bladerunner are some examples). When I see a good film based on a book I am familiar with (LOTR, Cider House Rules, Minority Report, The Shining, Solaris, for example) I approach it with a head full of expectations. With this film, I had only a palm full of expectations, and, though my review may sound negative, I was pleasantly surprised. The film dove unexpectedly deep, but in the end, came up a little empty-handed for me. Nor did I expect the film to be as breezily entertaining as it was. Balancing breezy entertainment and deep psychological drama (not to mention literary comedy and plenty of music) is a difficult task. Though The Singing Detective ultimately fails in this ambitious goal, it is still worth seeing, if nothing else, as an appetizer for the mini-series - which I will borrow from my relative post-haste.

Detective story writer Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr.) is hospitalized suffering full body lesions. The pain is causing hallucinations of hard-boiled detective characters. He is treated by Dr. Gibbon (Mel Gibson) and nurse Mills (Katie Holmes). He is demanding to have his novel 'The Singing Detective' from his wife (Robin Wright). He is hounded by two detectives in his dreams as well a vision of his mother (Carla Gugino) who took him from his father to live in rundown L.A.

It's an intriguing idea. It may even work if the surreal dreamscape makes any sense at all. The dream work becomes a lot of nothing with bits of really interesting childhood recollections with his mother. After awhile, the hallucinations get repetitive and it ultimately goes nowhere.

When 'The Singing Detective' was first produced as a TV mini series in 1986, it had a cumulative running time of well over 400 minutes. In this theatrical remake, the story has been pared down to no more than 106. I haven't seen the original - which enjoyed almost unprecedented critical acclaim in its time - so I have no idea how much of its quality has been lost in its currently truncated form. Hence, I will only be talking about this expurgated version, which stars Robert Downey Jr. and Mel Gibson, both in virtually unrecognizable roles. It should be noted that the screenplay is credited to the late Dennis Potter, the author of the original work, so we can assume that director Keith Gordon simply cut and pasted - though a less charitable person might say 'bowdlerized' - the much longer teleplay.

'The Singing Detective' tells the surrealistic tale of a writer of detective fictions who is suffering from a horrifically painful and disfiguring skin disease. As he lies in his hospital bed, his mind drifts back and forth between reality and fantasy, a hallucinatory condition brought on by fever and his own author's imagination. At times, Dan is acutely aware of his miserable situation in the here and now, with all its attendant physical and psychological agony. At other times he becomes lost in re-enactments of key scenes from his gumshoe fictions, memories of his miserable childhood, and elaborately staged song-and-dance numbers in which the characters lip-synch to musical standards from the '40's and '50's.

Because its style and subject matter are somewhat off-putting at first, 'The Singing Detective' takes a bit of getting used to, but eventually the themes and stylistic elements begin to come together and the film takes off. The irony is that, for all the razzle dazzle of its form and style, the film is at its most intriguing in its quieter, subtler moments when the embittered hospital patient is forced to confront the demons of his own tormented psyche. Dan Dark is a man who obviously prefers the world of fantasy to the cold harshness of an often excruciatingly painful reality. In addition to his debilitating disease, Dan is also haunted by a failed marriage and an often tragic childhood that he tries to 'correct' by entering the world of idealized fiction, one that he can manipulate and control. As the bombastic hospital psychologist figures out, Dan's illness is essentially psychosomatic in nature, one rooted in his inability to accept the realities of life in his own skin. In fact, Dan ultimately discovers that his disease is as much a product of his imagination as the scenarios and characters that make up his fiction. The illness becomes his way of not having to deal with his inner torments. Somewhat paradoxically, his writing becomes a form of therapy for him, helping him to deal with all that unresolved bitterness in his soul. The film is as much about psychological healing as it is about physical healing. Oddly enough, Dan's confrontations with his wife, psychologist and other hospital staff are actually far more interesting than what is happening in his rather puerile imagination. Still, towards the end of the film, when Dan starts to make some profound psychological breakthroughs, the fantasy scenes actually do begin to work and the complex structure pays off.

Downey does a fantastic job bringing Dan to life, conveying both the physical and emotional anguish the character is undergoing. Gibson has a great deal of fun playing the part of a paunchy, balding psychiatrist whose unorthodox methods wind up getting to the root of his belligerent patient's troubles. Robin Wright Penn, Jeremy Northam, Adrian Brody, Katie Homes and Alfre Woodard among others all deliver top notch supporting performances. And special praise must surely go to the large makeup staff whose work here is nothing short of miraculous.

'The Singing Detective' will probably not satisfy die-hard fans of the original lengthy mini series. But for the rest of us who have seen no other version than this one, the film's audacious style and complex themes help the movie ride up and over its not inconsiderable flaws.

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.

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.