Mortdecai
(2015)
David Koepp’s (very loose) film adaptation of the first of
Kyril Bonfiglioli’s novels concerning louche art dealer Charlie Mortdecai
arrived in January to resounding disdain. Much of this was directed at star
Johnny Depp, whose whacky voices/ wigs/make-up schtick is now being judged as a
full-blown irritant by even his most charitable critics. While I’m not immune to a sense of fatigue at
his determined mugging, I’ve yet to succumb to thermal death point; I do, actually still find him entertaining for
the most part. So with that caveat, for the most part I found his latest crazy
creation, Charlie Mortdecai, entertaining, as determinedly indulgent as his
performance is. The real problem with
Mortdecai is that it comes courtesy of a director lacking real comic flair.
The movie is fitfully as engaging and lively as it desperately wants to be –
and by no means the atrocity that has been claimed – but Koepp continually
gives off the air of someone who has studied how to make a crazy comedy caper,
and never as one to whom it comes naturally.
Koepp, from a screenplay by Eric Aronson, seems to be aiming
for something of the effortlessly oddball tone of Wes Anderson (Jeff Goldblum
even appears, for all of three minutes), but you can’t learn how to be Wes
Anderson. Either you’re a Wes or you aren’t (Depp was reportedly considering
the M Gustav role in Grand Budapest Hotel
at one point). I could imagine, say, Michael Lehmann lending this an
appropriately offbeat tone, but Koepp is all at sea. I’d attributed the issues
with his last comedy Ghost Town, to
be more down to Ricky Gervais as leading man, but Koepp’s funny bone malaise
seems more fundamental. If you’re trying too hard, you end up looking
desperate. He’s a solid, serviceable director (Stir of Echoes and Premium
Rush are particularly strong examples), and even with a bit of a fizzle
(Depp starrer Secret Window), he can
generally nail tone, but the prevailing lack of comedy on his screenwriting
resumé,
and his being someone who can adapt Dan Brown with a straight face, ought to have
been warning signs.
As such, I wouldn’t put the failings of Mortdecai down to the determined anglophilia of its lead actor and
director; there’s no reason American filmmakers shouldn’t go British any more
than there is for not casting Brits as the entire superhero populace of the
States (so it often seems). And Depp can do a funny British accent in his
sleep. No, I think the problem is these kind of pictures are much harder than
they appear (stolen paintings turned into divine farce got Anderson multiple
Oscar nominations for Grand Budapest
Hotel, but who has any fondness for Michael Hoffman’s broad-as-broad remake
of Gambit?) There’s also the little
detail that the source material isn’t really that hot.
Bonfiglioli’s novels have been compared in prose style and sense
of humour to PG Wodehouse, and he was so indebted (quite understandably) that
he couldn’t resist namedropping the author in his Charlie Mortdecai novels. For
Bertie Wooster transpose Charlie Mortdecai, and for Jeeves replace Jock (Strapp,
Paul Bettany). It’s true that Bonfiglioli has an exuberant, jocular style, but
in content he couldn’t diverge more extremely from his authorial hero. The
Mortdecai novels are the vulgarian’s version of Wodehouse, Carry On Wodehouse, if you will, replete with a steady stream of
sexual innuendo, bodily function gags and a pastiche approach to American crime
fiction (the last bit isn’t Wodehouseian, but one could quite imagine a Carry On Up the Big Easy).
If nothing else, this highlights why Wodehouse’s style is so
distinctive and remains so seminal; it isn’t so much that his humour is
sophisticated or that his plotting is incredible (if you’ve read one Wodehouse
novel, you pretty much know how they go). It’s that the language is so
pleasurably lyrical, almost musical, and the world he creates is entirely
heightened and untouched by anything approaching everyday problems (less still
anything as undignified as sex). Bonfiglioli could mimic the style, but then
peppering the content with fart jokes, debauchery and lustiness plays to the cheap
seats. The results tend towards the sadly adolescent (by comparison and
contrast, Douglas Adams steered his love of Wodehouse into the realm of science
fiction, and so was able to hook a similar flair for language to material that
brought out, rather than curtailed, the big ideas he was playing with). The lowbrow
humour operates as a crutch, rather than an effective contrast.
Which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy a good fart gag. But it
needs to be employed with judiciously. Too frequently, Mortdecai strays into the field of the BBC’s godawful recent Blandings adaption, which seemed almost
perversely at odds with everything that made Wodehouse’ writing so glorious. Mortdecai doesn’t actually shame its
source material, of course; indeed, one of its problems that it’s too
deferential.
The plot is convoluted, but not in an involving manner and,
since this isn’t a full-blown parody of the Mike Myers variety, Aronson is
unable to use this to its advantage. Numerous elements survive from the book,
just as many more are discarded: the stolen Goya painting (and where it is
hidden), the sale of the Rolls, Inspector Martland (as with Charlie, granted a
photogenic makeover in the form of Ewan McGregor, but they retain their mutual
contempt), the globetrotting.
Others are changed or invented. The Russians are new, while
Johanna’s character is effectively substituted for Georgina (Olivia Munn), the
nymphomaniac daughter of Krampf (Jeff Goldblum). Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow) is
ready and wed to Charlie when we first meet her (this doesn’t happen until the
second novel). Her disapproval of Charlie’s moustache is, of course, a homage
to Jeeves’ frequent dismay with Bertie’s clueless fashion choices (which, at
one point, include a liperpillar).
Mortdecai is more successful during the first half, before it’s expected to start solving its ungainly plot.
It’s not as if Koepp can’t construct a set piece efficiently. Rather, they just
don’t have the lightness of touch that could make them fly. There are some good laughs to be had, of course;
Charlie trying to persuade Martland to eat some especially stinky cheese, his “sympathetic gag reflex” in response to
the effect his moustache has on Johanna, a visit to Spinoza (Paul Whitehouse,
continuing his best pal-dom with Depp) at the garage and ending much as it does
in the novel, an elaborate car chase that finds Charlie, Jock and Emil (Jonny
Pasvolsky) swappng places as it progresses, a meeting with Sir Graham (Michael
Culkin) that sees Charlie pinned against a lift wall (“What are you hiding in your belly?”). And capture by the Russians,
led by Banshee’s Ulrich Thomson
(asked to “Open your balls”
Charlie responds, “I shan’t! What does
that even mean?”)
The shift to America (“A
terribly vulgar place called Los Angeles, apparently located in the far west
colonies”) might have been ripe for laughs, but somehow the post-Imperial
public school superiority Charlie wields feels terribly laboured (it was dated when Bonfiglioli was offering
it in the ‘70s) The country-hopping is accompanied by garishly-titled
transitions that highlight Koepp’s wanting sense of tone. He has something
broad so he thinks the only way to go is to make everything broad. In this regard, check out, or avoid, the score by
Mark Ronson and Geoff Zanelli, which is far too big and intrusive, trying to
breezily proclaim “THIS IS FUNNY!” (to be fair, the soundtrack is probably
quite a good listen in isolation).
What Mortdecai
highlights most effectively is the deceptively light tough Mike Myers and Jay
Roach brought to Austin Powers.
There, Myers knew how to revel in the crudity in a more consistently creative
and centralised manner. Probably because he took his cues from the Pink Panther series (as much as Bonds), which at their best knew how to
extend a set piece or bit of business to the point where their ridiculousness
becomes sublime. Probably also because he built his movies around extended
sketches.
Mortdecai occasionally
approaches such inspired territory; the aforementioned car chase has a touch of
dementedly delightful slapstick, and a later chase finds a food poisoned Jock
throwing up over a pursuing car’s windscreen (“Questionable attack, Jock. Spirited, though”). However, too often
half a joke is flourished without the zest to make the whole thing sing (a
climactic fight at an auction, where a crate is dropped on Charlie, only to
collapse around him, leaving him unscathed, is fine, but the rest of the
sequence is forgettable).
Depending on your tolerance levels, its Depp who ultimately
makes this passable or kills it. For the most part Mortdecai’s double act with
Jock is every bit as effective as it is on the page. Bettany continually steals
the show as Jock, and if Charlie’s capacity for injuring him is overcooked, it
does result in an amusing sequence where his “manservant and thug” is about to lose a finger in Charlie’s stead.
Jock has been imbued with an “enviable
rate of sexual intercourse” here, probably considered more palatable than
his Shirley Temple fixation from the novels.
More lines groan or fall flat (“I had no idea I was so deep in her majesty’s hole”), than hit the
spot (“The file was fat, and well
handled, like a Welsh barmaid”), but enough do carry to make this easier viewing than the majority of mainstream studio comedies. By this point,
there is little discernable difference between what Depp is doing with a
Charlie Mortdecai and what Myers does (used to do?) with his comic personas,
except the latter is a control freak and Depp clearly isn’t. Lines like “Oh, you pretended to be gentle but you weren’t”
or “It made me feel dirty” are all
down to Depp’s delivery; this is the closest he has come to a Clouseau or
Austin Powers, but he really needed a more sympathetic director.
There’s a rich
vein to be tapped in cowardly, aloof and disdainful characters, and Depp
relishes hiding under tables and referencing having children as an “odious thought” (he’s been actively into
undercutting classic heroes since at least Sleepy
Hollow), or insulting a Russian henchman (“Your mother and father only knew each other for a day, and money
changed hands”).
I don’t think Depp was going for the Terry-Thomas thing
further than the gap tooth visual cue (wisely, he didn’t have a hope in hell of
coming close). As for the rest of his appearance, the moustache obsession isn’t
nearly as funny as everyone clearly thinks it is, but even that has the odd
moment; getting in a lift surrounded by other hirsute types, and comparing
notes with Emil (“I was just admiring
your Franz Joseph”).
The supporting cast are mostly fine. The likes of Michael
Culkin, Whitehouse and Goldblum (it’s amusing to see Goldblum being weird in a
“straight” role, just by being
Goldblum, acting against Depp who can only be weird by dressing up in an
overpowering character suit) are good value. McGregor is badly miscast. He’s
the straight man, but he isn’t a natural with comedy, or with RP delivery come
to that. It renders the picture lopsided; he’s at his least damaging playing
spurned devotee to Johanna.
Paltrow probably nurses more ill feeling than Deep these
days, although I can’t say I’ve closely followed all the reasons she’s now apparently
a terrible person. She’s blessed with good comic timing, and is entirely delectable
throughout (particularly in a policeman’s helmet and scarf). It says a lot for
her that she’s more than able to hold her own with pronounced screen hogs like
Depp and Downey Jr, particularly in roles that are intrinsically less dazzling.
Her best scene comes with Michael Byrne’s Duke, keen to show her what he has in
the lavatory (“I’ve been trying to get
rid of her, but she’s so damned attractive”).
Mortdecai is all
set to rank near the top of many a “Worst of 2015” lists, but it doesn’t really
deserve such opprobrium (any more than Myers’ slated The Love Guru did). It’s patchy, sure (it’s never going to be
rediscovered as cult movie the way, say, Hudson
Hawk has been) and Koepp should definitely stick to thrillers in future
(its safe to say there won’t be any further Charlie Mortdecai movies, at least
not with Depp or in the next decade or two), but this is probably as about as
good a Kyril Bonfiglioli adaptation as could be hoped for, short of drastically
upgrading the source material.
