The Singing Detective (2003)

I enjoyed nearly every moment in The Singing Detective. I immensely enjoyed the developed chacters and the creativity that was put into this great film. The Singing Detective is a dark comedy and chacter study, and throw in a couple musicals. The Singing Detective might not be for everyone, it is a strange and has an odd sense of humor.Although for me i thought the comedy was clever and the story and dialog were creative in every way. in conclusion, if dark comedies and some really good acting (Robert Downey Jr. never lets me down with his amazing performances and this movie, explains why he is so damn good), and pure creativity is your cup of tea then, i strongly suggest The Singing Detective.

Fmovies: In "The Singing Detective" there are moments of pure "Yes!" as Downey incredibly resurrects Humphrey Bogart. He did not 'do Bogart' as anyone and their brother can do, (mine usually works..), but it seemed instead he must actually have been doing what Bogart himself did: focusing on difficult issues, maintaining deep courage and principles, and finally acting richly with his whole being. I have seen nothing to compare with it since the original immortal performances. We are talking superbly transcendent character acting, (as when Downey did Chaplin). Oscars? Schmoskers! Downey deserves a Nobel Prize; and why not give such an honor? Is literature ever to be held in greater esteem than cinema? BTW... Mel Gibson did what I thought was his personal best job, and the rest of the cast's acting was crisp and gifted. If some felt that the plot was the weakest element, consider the plot in "Chicago". A good vehicle does what it must. I liked the whole thing, with all its vivid medical depictions, coarse direction, and unfiltered displays of human dysphoria.

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.

The Singing Detective fmovies. The 2003 film version of THE SINGING DETECTIVE is by turns funny, scathing, and poignant, a woefully underrated look into a writer's psyche. If you don't have time to watch Dennis Potter's landmark TV miniseries (also available on home video), Potter's screenplay for this movie version (written 2 years before his untimely death) does a great job of condensing the story of novelist Dan Dark's (Robert Downey Jr.) battle with severe chronic psoriasis and personal demons. Throughout the movie, the bitter, suffering Dark weaves in and out of reality and delirious re-imaginings of the people and events in his life as they'd appear in the titular novel starring Dark's tough private eye alter ego. Actor-turned-director Keith Gordon stages this wild ride through Dark's mind with a style that owes as much to David Lynch and the Coen Brothers as it does to Potter. The British miniseries' lip-synched 1940s musical set pieces are retooled as American 1950s rock 'n' roll numbers -- call me a Philistine, but I think the updating works even better than the original (and believe me, I loved the original)! As a writer, I found THE SINGING DETECTIVE to be a fine example of how one's life and experiences creep into one's writing no matter what genre you write in. Each and every member of the stellar cast is letter-perfect, with particularly good, sharp chemistry between Downey and, respectively, Robin Wright Penn (I've always loved her name; it's especially appropriate for someone playing a writer's wife :-), and producer Mel Gibson (as Dark's seemingly goofy but astute and compassionate therapist, Gibson is all but unrecognizable in bald drag; Greg Cannom's F/X makeup serves both Gibson and Downey well). It's a shame THE SINGING DETECTIVE didn't do better with critics or at the box office, or Downey probably would've been a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. I could empathize with Downey as the bitter, clever, pain-racked (physically and emotionally) Dan Dark even when he wasn't acting particularly likable. The versatile Downey could be a Bogart for the Aughties if he could keep his own personal demons under control. I also enjoyed seeing our household fave Adrien Brody in a relatively lighthearted (for this film :-) role as one of a pair of Dark's fictional hoods with a bumbling streak. Jon Polito completes the pair; he and Brody are like an amoral Abbott & Costello. Their repartee cracked me up, especially their "Patti Page" exchange early in the film. Give this new SINGING DETECTIVE a try next time you're in the video store and in the mood for something different. If you rent the DVD and like it, watch it again with Keith Gordon's commentary track on; he has lots of intriguing and entertaining things to say about the making of the film, particularly about the cast and how he and his crew got those great surreal effects on a low budget.

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 entertain

It was a dark and sultry evening when Rooprect, gumshoe film critic wannabe, popped in this DVD expecting to see something as pulpy and vapid as the 50s comic book artwork on the cover. "The Shhinging Detectivesh" said Rooprect out of the right corner of his mouth while out of the left corner was a limp cherry Twizzler hanging like the soggy laundry that he forgot to put in the dryer the night before.

And that's where my story writing skills end.

But never fear, the 2003 movie "The Singing Detective" has more than enough going for it to keep your attention for 109 minutes, if not days afterwards. This is one of those deliciously deceptive films that promises a kiss on the cheek but delivers a suckerpunch to the gums. It can broadly be called a musical, a comedy, a crime drama, a psychological thriller, a mind trip, and just about anything else under the sun. But the trick is not to expect any 1 of those. Just be ready for anything.

The story begins in a kind of satirical film noir setting which we quickly learn is one of the nightmarish delusions that plague our hero (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) as he lies in a hospital bed, suffering, disfigured and terminally ticked off at the world. Downey's chilling yet charismatic performance is what sucks us in. His ability to portray the world's worst cynic while eliciting our sympathies (not to mention getting our toes tapping to such hits as "How Much is that Doggie in the Window") is something I haven't seen since... heck, since ever.

The story follows him as he explores his own mind, his past, his present, and of course his cryptic fantasies which play out like Humphrey Bogart with an NC-17 rating. Yes, sexuality is very prevalent in this film, but it's not gratuitous. It can make for awkward viewing (do NOT watch this movie with your parents, and for Pete's sake not with kids!), but there is a clear point to his rude, crude, abusive visions. Some of it is so over-the-top that you'll die laughing, such as the hospital dance number where the doctors & nurses are all but raping their bedridden patients (not too subtle on the symbolism there!). In fact, all of it is very tongue in cheek. Just remember that we are exploring the mind of a seriously damaged human being.

Mel Gibson plays a role I've never seen him play, something so different and so well done that I didn't recognize him for several minutes. He's the nerdy little bald psychotherapist whose job is to crack Downey's mind. And all the while you feel like Downey is ready to crack Gibson's skull if he could only make a fist. The dynamic between these two is absolutely magical.

Robin Wright Penn completes the trio of acting magnificence. She plays the mysterious wife whom we're not sure whether she's a good guy or a bad guy. As she appears in various nightmares that paint her in a less-than-complimentary light (prostitute, liar, swindler), we start to understand the message of the film: that paranoia can taint an entire world. And yet, is it truly paranoia if our suspicions are correct? Watch the film and find out.

Adrien Brody and Joe Polito (the most repulsive and lovable gangster you've ever seen) round out the troupe as two killers hot on the trail of... well, nobody knows. You wonder if they do. Like all the other characters in the film, they are alternately chilling and charming. They disturbed me to my core and made me laugh like I was a kid at a birthday party.

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