The Singing Detective (2003)

Sadly Over-hyped

Good start, but then it gets ruined

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Detective story writer Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr.) is hospitalized suffering full body lesions. The pain is causing hallucinations of hard-boiled detective characters. He is treated by Dr. Gibbon (Mel Gibson) and nurse Mills (Katie Holmes). He is demanding to have his novel 'The Singing Detective' from his wife (Robin Wright). He is hounded by two detectives in his dreams as well a vision of his mother (Carla Gugino) who took him from his father to live in rundown L.A.It's an intriguing idea. It may even work if the surreal dreamscape makes any sense at all. The dream work becomes a lot of nothing with bits of really interesting childhood recollections with his mother. After awhile, the hallucinations get repetitive and it ultimately goes nowhere.

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.

Admittedly I saw this awhile back and am planning to get again from Netflix because I am re-watching the older TV series with Michael Gambon as the writer and the comparison keeps coming to mind. If this suffers by comparison, it is because the older series was 6 hour-long episodes, and this was movie length so nothing was as developed. Some confusion would no doubt have cleared up without time constraints. Both were engrossing and fascinating, prefer the older if only because the wife's nature was more unclear (i.e., bitchier) And MG does curmudgeon so well. Watch both if you can, and compare, see what you think. Worth the time spent.

Yet another American remake of a British classic that gets it totally wrong.The singing detective is the middle section of a trilogy that describes Dennis Potters childhood and early adulthood.Pennies from Heaven is set in the 1930's with a jazz soundtrack The singing detective is set in the 1940's with a swing soundtrack lipstick on your collar is set in the 1950's with a rock and roll soundtrack.How can The singing detective have rock and roll music as it had not around in the 1940's?Don't get me started on the remake of Edge of Darkness as this was in the negative score's, but both original's had Johanne Whalley is the cast so there's a bonus.Sometimes the original version can not be bettered, so please don't bother.