Marlowe 4K 2022 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Bay City, California, 1939. A mysterious blonde hires private detective Philip Marlowe to find her missing lover. The vintage detective has no idea that this seemingly simple case will soon become deadly for him.

Review 4K Movie

The protagonist of many stories of the writer-realist Raymond Chandler - private detective Philip Marlowe, far from the first time appears on the screen and the very first movie was "It's Murder, Baby", released in the distant 1944. Then, incidentally, the author of the novel - Chandler, the performer Philip Marlowe Dick Powell and screenwriter John Paxton were awarded the Edgar Allan Poe Award, which is annually awarded by the organization "Detective Writers of America".

So, Philip Marlowe as a screen character is almost 100 years old and now, the new actor to play the character is Liam Neeson. In addition to him and Powell, the role of Marlowe has been played by Elliott Gould, James Caan, George Montgomery, Robert Montgomery, as well as Robert Mitchum, James Garner and Powers Boothe. For Neeson, the role of an old-school detective from noir L.A. in the 1930s and 1940s is like a breath of fresh air in a succession of (let's be honest) one-note characters that the actor has found himself swamped with over the past few years.

In "Marlowe" he generally from this image has not gone anywhere, because Philip Marlowe - a private investigator and fights crime with his methods and tries to get to the truth. But at least here he does not play a former military man, CIA agent or someone else. Besides, the events are developing not in our days, but in the late 30s, when the world was on the brink of World War II, and in the U.S. crime continued to flourish, L.A. became a hotbed of gangsters, and prostitution and drugs were quite commonplace ...

And so, in such "colorful" times and existed Philip Marlowe. He was once asked for help by a spectacular blonde Claire Cavendish (Diane Kruger), whom Neeson might remember from "Unknown" in 2011 (in this movie they both played), who needed to find her lover - a certain Nico Peterson. Marlowe took the case, but soon realized that everything in it is not so simple and this assignment is much riskier than it looks at first glance ...

Noir... A lot of people strive to make noir movies, but not everyone can do it well and make the viewer nostalgic for those times in which he never lived (well, if this refers to the audience of middle and young age). "Marlowe" as one of the representatives of this genre is certainly adorable. Los Angeles in the late 30s. Hats, vintage cars, seductive women, drugs and big money. And where there's drugs and money, there's death. It's simple and obvious.

"Marlowe" like "Secrets of L.A." for example, offers another story of dirty secrets that add up to a chain that leads either to the upper echelons of power or to the top in the police force. The movie itself is not bad and offers the viewer quite a bearable detective story, but something in "Marlowe" is still not so. Again, if we evaluate it from the point of view of noir picture.

When watching it, you don't feel the atmosphere (of course, at my age I can only guess about how things were in those years), which was available to the viewer when watching the same "Secrets of Los Angeles", "Black Dahlia" or for example "Mulholland Rock". Everything is somehow not real. And Neeson, although he moved away from the same type of images in the movie, still looks not particularly fresh in the role of Marlowe, who in the books is not as old as the actor in reality. And Diane Kruger does not create the impression of a femme fatale beauty, and the case investigated by Marlowe turns out to be sewn with white threads and from the very first minutes of the appearance of the red-haired blonde the viewer already understands where everything is going....

One could assume that due to the age of the director he failed to convey the spirit of the time. But Neil Jordan is old enough, as is Curtis Hanson, for example, who directed "Secrets of Los Angeles". And Ruben Fleischer, who made "Gangster Hunters", at the time of release of that picture was 38 years old, and yet his Gangster Squad was quite good.

Nevertheless, the lack of the right atmosphere does not mean that "Marlowe" is bad. Just against the background of already made movies in this genre, it is noticeably inferior to the above projects.