If you've ever seen a group of people having fun and have not been able to join in, you'll know my feeling while watching the caper comedy (which is being generous) Mortdecai. The cast obviously had a good time making it but it's so boring for the audience to sit through. This is a desperately unfunny, constantly grating attempt at a more adult oriented version of The Pink Panther. While the idea of making this type of humor solely for adults is refreshing, it's simply unbearable here and that takes away any praise I can give the film for that idea. It is also necessary to note that the idea of being aimed only at adults lost a lot of points from me when I found out that Mortdecai may be the most tame R rated film ever made. This is made all the more sad by the fact that there is immense talent both in front of and behind the camera. With that being said, the most notably horrible thing about this film is the performance of Johnny Depp, who used to be a great actor (check out Ed Wood, Donnie Brasco, From Hell, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Ninth Gate and Dead Man for some excellent examples) but has recently been phoning it in big time. Here, he gives the most pathetic and lazy performance of his long career. The man owns his own private island on the Bahamas so I'm sure he doesn't feel the need to try at all anymore. However, looking at his career prior to the last fifteen years or so makes me sad because he obviously has talent.
The film follows Charlie Mortdecai (Depp,) an expert in the arts who loves his newly grown mustache (if you find his obsession with his facial hair funny, you'll be happy to know there are about 2000 jokes about just that.) Along with his sidekick, Jock Strapp (ho, ho) (Paul Bettany,) he gets hired by uptight agent Martland (Ewan McGregor) to locate a recently stolen Goya painting. By his side, Charlie has his trophy wife, Johanna (Gywenth Paltrow) who hates the addition to his upper lip and has a gag reflex about it, which causes Mortdecai's sympathetic gag reflex to go off. (This is yet another joke that is dead in the water the first time it's told but somehow gets told 1000 more times.)
What feels most desperate in this film is the amount of times it goes for a joke but then peters out right before it tells said joke. This whole endeavor feels like reading a book of anti-jokes. One of the most famous anti-jokes is "what did Batman say to Robin before getting in the Batmobile?..Get in the car." That's a good idea of what this film considers a joke. Behind the camera is director David Koepp, who previously directed Stir of Echoes, Secret Window, Premium Rush, Ghost Town and The Trigger Effect, all films I loved and find criminally overlooked. Koepp also wrote some really good films such as The Paper, Apartment Zero, Carlito's Way, Death Becomes Her and Bad Influence. I can't even blame Koepp for his directing..this is obviously not the kind of film that he excels in.
However, writer Eric Aronson, whose only other project was the 2001 Lance Bass-Joey Fatone disaster On The Line (that should tell you something about this man's ability to write anything) is very much at blame. The script is based on one of a series of mildly successful books by Kyril Bonfiglioli but Aronson does it no favors. While I have never read any of the books, Aronson adds so much awkward, out of place humor into the mix as well as too many potential bad guys. A lot of the mystery is who the villain(s) actually are but by the time that the tenth potential bad guy rolls in 30 minutes in, I lost interest in figuring out anything about who stole the painting. Another weak aspect of this mystery is that not a single one of the potential villain(s)' motivations make any sense. By making this a flaw, Aronson has completely thrown out any legitimacy to the mystery.
Depp is still the most annoying thing here. Every time he opened his mouth, I wanted to slap him across the face. This is not helped by the fact that unnecessary narration by Charlie is used in the film. This is one of those films that breaks the golden rule of making a movie--show, don't tell. The few mild chuckles this film does get come from Bettany in an overly dedicated comedic performance as Charlie's overly dedicated butler (or man servant as the script thinks it's hilarious to call him.) He's the only hint in this film of anyone trying at all to score a laugh. This is one of the most disappointing wastes of talent I can ever remember.
(1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for some language and sexual material)
A film this low on actual quality should at least have the courtesy to have it's flaws be thought-provoking, like Depp's 2013 misfire The Lone Ranger, not monotonous, which is actually a pretty damn good word to sum up Mortdecai as a whole.
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