Gotham

I really enjoy this quirky, sensual film, but even after several viewings, I am still a bit confused about the plot. It's not one of those bizarre films where you shake your head and say "what?", but rather one that keeps you going up and down different alleyways. Tommy Lee Jones is very sexy and perfectly cast as the rough and tumble private eye hired to get a man's dead wife off his trail. But, is the wife really dead? What is fantasy and what is reality? Virginia Madsen is drop dead gorgeous, no pun intended. She and Tommy Lee Jones have a very hot sexual chemistry between them. This is the only movie with the formidable Mr. Jones that I have seen him engaged in a passionate, nude love scene. This alone is worth renting the movie. It's not great, but it's very old-fashioned, gritty film noir, and extremely sexy, and definitely not predictable.

Q: What do you get if you put a naturaly gifted actress with powerful screen presence, together centre stage with an actor who exudes raw, truthful bearing? A: An extremely interesting and tantilising mind game. Sadly, too few films, since the 1940's, allow both the male & female leads to both shine absolutely equaly, profiting the end result. The culmination of Jones & Madsen's performances is a retro work of art. The casting & editing is vibrant, but this narrative should have been directed by an Art House impresario, because lost in mainstream tv it becomes merely a taxing jigsaw.

PLOT: The two titles are part of the puzzle aspect to this film. For 'Gotham', read as - Goth-ham or Gothic 'ham', as in a noir spoof, or if you equate Gotham with Batman, then evolve this to the catchphrase 'the dynamic duo' and you have the Madsen & Jones chemistry. For 'The Dead Can't Lie', read as - why tell us, unless they can, therefore is this a single or double bluff? These are clues, but they could be a 'red herring'. It's a dark tale about lies within lies and whether there is any point in unraveling them. There are repeated motifs in the dialogue that are inconsistant, so it probably isnt possible to assert the truth, since each character is potentially lieing! Even the music is designed to deliberately mislead!

RATEING: 7/10 as a film, but 9/10 as a brain teaser.

WHO should watch this film?: Adults only, because of content. Women will enjoy the exuberantly feminine power of Madsen, whereas men will enjoy looking at it in action! Watch out for the 'Rubik's Cube', as it's a barometer of Jones' confusion and ours! If you like doing puzzles and can cope if you dont solve them, you will love & watch this film repeatedly.

I first saw Gotham in 1989 and then in 2001 and it stood up well: Gotham is on the one hand an ironic tribute to hard-boiled detective movies, but it chooses to keep its irony under the surface rather than over-the-top, telling a susupenseful and carefully unfolded story with real twists and turns even as it tosses the occasional wink taht we've seen the set-pieces before. There is real suspense as we watch Tommy Lee Jones get in way over his head--he takes it well enough when he discovers, early on, that he is indeed dealing with a malicious ghost--but from there on he is forced to watch with his own investigators detatchemht as he fall in love with this ghost, going down hill physically and every other way step by step--at the end, he is faced with a battle for his soul as serious as Sam Spades faces at the end of "Maltese Falcon"--and, even at the end, the wry humor returns to wrap it all nicely up. By the way--keep yuour eye out for spooky oddities at ther corner of your vision--they are there!

"Eddie Mallard" (Tommy Lee Jones) is a down-on-his-luck private detective who is about to be evicted from his office for failure to pay his rent. Needless to say, he is surprised when a wealth man by the name of "Colin Bruce" (Charlie Rand) walks into his office and offers to pay him a considerable amount of money to simply convince his ex-wife "Rachel Carlyle" (Virginia Madsen) to agree to leave him alone. But what really stuns Eddie is when Colin tells him that Rachel has been dead for ten years. Now, normally any private detective with an ounce of integrity would turn down the job because their prospective client is obviously insane. But being that he is in serious financial straits Eddie takes the job anyway. However, once he finally meets Rachel things begin to take a horrifying turn from that point on. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a strange film which at times didn't seem to flow well from one scene to the next. Even so both Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen played their parts quite well and--strange as it was--I enjoyed this film for the most part and have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

I thought the storyline was provocative, and the writing was good but not superlative (Kevin Jarre is a wonderful writer, and I'm willing to bet the script would have been lots better if the director had left it alone.) Tommy Lee Jones was fantastic, as usual- his leading lady was a beautiful woman but a mediocre actress. Liked the Russian Orthodox priest, too; a fun addition. Really liked the lady singer doing 'Where Or When' in a club where the couple met. 'Danny Boy' was lovely, as well, as was the Latin piece the leading lady danced on the roof to. Fun movie to critique and "improve" in your mind as you're watching it. the soap opera crowd would probably love it without reservation. The meticulous might very well cringe. All and all very entertaining.