Starring: Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor
Distributor: Lionsgate Films
Runtime: 107 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2015
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‘Mortdecai’ is a curious film without a clear audience; perhaps too silly for grown-ups, and too mature for kids. However it is not without its own charm, largely due perhaps to its cast’s willingness to embrace its madcap sensibilities.
When an art deal goes wrong in Hong Kong, pompous British art smuggler Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is pulled out of trouble by his handy manservant Jock (Paul Bettany). We get the sense that this is not the first time these extraction skills have been required – near bankrupt and ostensibly a moron in every sense other than his knowledge of fine art, he is a dim man clutching at straws. Depp plays the protagonist with a batty relish that we have seen before his Captain Jack Sparrow and Tonto, and here it is somehow both repellent and compelling. Paul Bettany is a delight as Jock, gruff and curt, and engaging readily in both fisticuffs with threats, and assurances to his oft-bewildered boss. He gets disappointingly little characterisation, other than that he is inexplicably often engaged in trysts with beautiful young women.
Back in England, Mortdecai’s longsuffering wife Joanna (Gwyneth Paltrow) is frustrated first by his deal’s collapse and their impending insolvency, and then by his refusal to shave his new moustache (which provides an obsessive focus of much of the film’s comedy). Drawn from a series of British novels, the script by Eric Aronson is almost unbearably light, with heavy use of innuendo and slapstick. Some flashes of incongruous violence however, take the film away from classic caper territory, stranding it instead in an uncertain no man’s land. Director David Koepp seems uncertain which tone to embrace, though his handle on the cast (and tempering of Depp’s occasionally distracting antics) is solid.
The plot gets nuttier still. After the murder of an art restorer and the theft of her latest subject, MI5 agent Martland (Ewan McGregor) – a university acquaintance of Mortdecai’s with an unrequited love for Joanna – enlists the help of Mortdecai to track the missing piece down. With his intimate knowledge of and place in ‘the filthy underside of the art world’, Mortdecai deduces that the painting is not only a long lost Goya, but also conceals the bank vault details of Goering’s stash of Nazi gold. With such a prize at stake, our hero is not the only interested party, and soon Mortdecai, Joanna and Jock are trying to outwit and outrun Russian gangsters, international terrorists, and an American nymphomaniac (a game Olivia Munn).
In other notable aspects, the jazz influenced score from Geoff Zanelli and Mark Ronson is a great nod to the film’s lighter influences, and the lush costuming of Ruth Myers is impressive throughout.
It’s difficult to put a label on ‘Mortdecai’ – think ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ if Wooster had been an art smuggler and Jeeves entertained a penchant for occasional violence. But P.G. Wodehouse this is not. The film has grown on me somewhat since leaving the screening, much like Mortdecai’s obnoxious moustache. In the end though, its quirks and its spirited cast can’t quite justify a recommendation.
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