Little Murder

Lucas convincingly pulled off this eerie tale of a police detective who not only was haunted by his past mistakes but haunted by the murder of beautiful young woman in the present. The storyline kept me interested and somewhat surprised to the end.

The Ghost of New Orleans is a ghost detective procedural. I do not know why I didn't see it at the theaters, but I wish I had. I really wanted to give this an eight or nine, but I can't. The last twenty minutes it comes into its own. I'm not as put off by the one bad accent, if you been too Southern Louisianna then you've heard it from Louisianans, there's only one place where it really doesn't work. There are three Louisianan accents, and he (Barry) does pull off one except once. Regarding basements in New Orleans, it's a common mistake and the term may be used in reference to a first floor that floods easily that is normally behind a retaining wall to keep the floods out. They feel like basements but are not basements so when you see a basement in a movie about Louisianna, it wasn't filmed in Louisianna. If you like detective or Ghost Stories then you'll like this.

Set in New Orleans, this film is a strange mixture of genres -- part film noir and part ghost story. Josh Lucas plays a detective, guilt-ridden over the shooting of an innocent boy by mistake. He is assigned to a stakeout in an empty house across the street from a suspect, Terrence Howard, who is possibly implicated in a number of bizarre serial killings. The detective soon discovers that the stakeout house has a reputation in the neighborhood of being haunted. A young female musician was murdered there several years earlier, allegedly by her own brother, who has been placed in an asylum for the criminally insane. When the detective discovers he is able to see, hear, and even touch the ghost of this murdered woman, played by Lake Bell, he realizes that she can only find rest if he can find her real killer and thus set the brother (Nick Lashaway) free. Deborah Ann Woll (of "True Blood") and Sharon Leal play friends of the murdered woman, and as such, their own lives may be in jeopardy. Cary Elwes stands out as the villainous owner of a country club that may be a front for drug trading. The movie is an atmospheric indie thriller that manages to be both suspenseful and moderately entertaining, thanks to sterling performances from Josh Lucas and Terrence Howard. Thus far, its only DVD releases that I'm aware of have been in Germany and Australia. Hopefully, it will be available in the U.S. before long.

The opening scene reveals the problem with this film - if it was a home-made film, ala the Blair Witch project, it might be more forgivable, but even indie films should be able to do better camera work than this, better directing. It's particularly tragic as a supernatural mystery film in New Orleans sounds so good and the scenery was downgraded by the truly poor production - almost as if the director, cameramen and production crew were entirely trashed throughout filming. I liked the plot, the casting and though I'd watch a film just for Josh Lucas, here his acting was spotty (fading in and out of character, too blatant to be passed off by the character development that did happen) he was far outmatched by Terrence Howard. Deborah Woll and Cary Elwes are fun in their supporting roles and it's always good to see those two. Lake Bell is very pretty - not going to win any acting awards for this - but she didn't ruin the film. I'd say the cast must not have been overly inspired - hope nobody else gives this director a shot. What a shame because this could have been a much better film. Still, definitely worth watching if you're going to bed anyway and are watching it for free.

I don't know if I should feel badly for Cary Elwes or Terrence Howard for having to portray characters that were way out of their wheelhouse, or if I should cry for those of us that had to watch them. OMG, they were terrible.

The story had potential, but was bogged down and moved way too slowly.

It's hard to believe how many really great actors were a part of this incredibly bad film.