MatBrewster

During a documentary extra on the DVD version of The Long Goodbye, director Robert Altman says they called Elliott Gould's version of Phillip Marlowe "Rip Van Marlowe" because it's like the iconic 1940's detective character fell asleep for 30 years and awoke in the 1970s.

True to form, the opening scene shows Marlowe being jolted out of a deep sleep. Gould plays Marlowe like he has stumbled out of hibernation and is completely baffled by everything going on around him. He does, however, take it with a 70's stoned indifference.

The film opens with interconnecting scenes between Phillip Marlowe and Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton). The soundtrack plays the same song through both scenes, but in completely different styles. Over Marlowe's scenes the music is soft and jazz like, while when Lennox is on screen it becomes more edgy, more rock influenced. It is a brilliant way to introduce characters and give us a sense of who they are.

This is not Howard Hawk's Raymond Chandler. Gone are the dark shadows, and production code of film noir. The sex and violence is no longer hidden under innuendo and suggestion. Here Marlowe's neighbors are drug ingesting nudists. This is Altman's subversion of a genre.

This is definitely a Robert Altman picture. There are plenty of trademark long shots, and overlapping dialogue. He is less interested in the Chandler story, than in a sense of style and the juxtaposition of classically moral 1930's detective in the amoral times of the swinging 1970s.

The story loosely follows Raymond Chandler's novel. Marlowe drives his friend, Lennox, to the Tijuana border only to return home to an apartment full of cops ready to arrest him for aiding and abetting Lennox, who is suspected of murdering his wife. Meanwhile Eileen Wade (Nina Van Pallandt) hires Marlowe to find her alcoholic husband who has disappeared. Between the cops and the missing husband Marlowe is accosted by local gangsters who want the money Lennox owes them. The three stories meet and interconnect in an ending that is vastly different from the novel.

There is a wonderful scene after the cops arrest Marlowe and are interrogating him. It begins as the standard interrogation scene with Marlowe in a small room being slapped around by tough cops, while others watch through a two way mirror. Altman invigorates the scene by inter-cutting the two rooms together. While the camera is in the interrogation room, the two way mirror is always in sight. When the scene moves into the outer room, we see through the mirror and can hear the Marlowe conversation as it overlaps with what the watching cops are saying.

Elliott Gould is brilliant as Phillip Marlowe. He seems completely amiss from his surroundings, oblivious to all the things going on all around him. He keeps the Chandler wisecracks going, but sends the tough guy gumshoe routine packing.

Though not a film for noir or even Chandler purists, it is a brilliant piece of cinema. In subverting a genre Altman has created a new kind of detective drama. One that is humorous, thrilling and cinematic.

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There are some films that I make no plans, nor have any desire to see. Yet, sometimes, through circumstance, see them is exactly what I do. Recently, I was invited to dinner at a friends house. Another invitee decided to rent this Jackie Chan vehicle. Never to be one to turn down a free movie, I watched.

They say Jacki Chan films are like pornos. The plots make no sense, the acting is horrid, and everyone is just waiting around for the action. If that is the case, then Around the World in 80 Days is like a bad soft core film on Cinemax. Unfortunately, for Chan fans, this seems to be pretty par for the course of late. His earlier, non English films, though containing worse overall production value, had more bang for you buck. His American made films seem to be bent on adding plot and characterization at the detriment of the action. This might be commendable if the additional plotting was any good. But more often than not, it's just a glossy version of the same old schlock. Around the World in 80 Days follows this formula.

Waiting thirty minutes into a Jackie Chan film for the first action sequence is an atrocity. When that action sequence is lame, you might as well take up the pooper scooper and walk the dog. The movie followed this pattern. Thirty minutes of mind numbing story development followed by tame, lame action sequences. At a 120 minute run time and any way you divide it that's way to little hockey socky.

The plot is old and rehashed. Loosely based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, Chan plays Lau Xing masquerading as Passpartout, servant of snooty inventor Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan). Through a bet they impart on a journey around the world in...oh, who cares? Who watches a Jackie Chan film for the plot? And if you don't know this story by now, stick around and I'm sure they'll make another TV movie of it shortly.

Chan's English has improved greatly over the last time I watched him, which really isn't saying a whole lot. Why is Hollywood bent on making this man who barely speaks the language, and can't act to save himself, spend most of his movies talking and acting? And all to keep him from doing the one thing he does very well: beating the crap out of people in creative and hilarious ways? The film is scattered with high profile cameos. Most interesting of which is the now California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger's turn as a Turkish prince. The others are mostly pointless and unfunny cameos designed to make the audience go "oh that's Rob Schneider" and miss the fact that he's amazingly unfunny and his character serves no particular point. The casting of Kathy Bates as the Queen seems most spectacularly ill placed. Her British accent is appalling. Was it to hard to find a real Brit to play this role? Some of my French friends have better British accents than that.

With the exception of but a few moments, the fight scenes, few that we get, are unspectacular. They joy of Jackie Chan is in his ability to stage acrobatic action sequences while using a odd array of props. Chairs, stools, flags, culinary devices have all served as weapons in previous pictures, yet here he is mostly intent on using his hands fighting against regular swords and blades. It's not that the action is terrible per say, but that they pale in comparison with so many of the others he has performed.

There is really nothing to recommend this movie. It is appropriate enough. There is little to offend the younger sensibilities (besides the acting, plot, and production values)If you have children, I suppose, they might find it silly enough to enjoy. But, with so many other quality films out there appropriate for children, I can't make myself recommend this one to them either.