Mortdecai

Mortdecai - 107min - R

There is no earthly way I can express my disappointment in this film. There are some really talented people attached and you'd figure it would have been better just on star power. The story is feeble and the jokes are delivered with determination but none land. At most the audience gave a nervous pity titter. All I can feel is embarrassment at how poor this movie came out. The lowest I can give it is a Red light, this movie has made me think I should set up a no light award.

Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) and his wife, Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow), owe back taxes to the tune of 8 million pounds. He needs to find a way to make a lot of money in a week before he loses his estate. His gets approached by Marland (Ewan McGregor), a member of MI5, who hires Mortdecai to find a rare painting that is supposed to have been destroyed. With his faithful man servant Jock (Paul Bettany) he sets off to find the painting and save his mustache and his home.

The one thing I did like about the movie is how Johnny Depp threw himself into the role. He doesn't do things in half measures. He transformed himself into the character. The character of a complete and total tit. There were absolutely no redeeming qualities to him. Paul Bettany did show off his action skills and he does them well. While he stood out in this film, with the bar set so low it wasn't hard.

I wonder if this movie looked better on paper, a person doesn’t start out by making a bad film… do they? I bet Johnny Depp was friends with them and decided to join in regardless of how bad it looked.

Johnny Depp is a standup guy. He has done a few things that have really gotten me on his side. So it baffles me why he chose to do this picture. His over-the-top British character was grating after a while. If this character was a member of a minority class, people would have called racism with as many stereotypes were used in the performance.

The movie has two endings. One was when Mordecai finds the painting, and I would been happy with the end being there, or maybe I just wanted to be done. There is another section where he comes up with a huge plan to get himself out of debit by pretending to sell it. I didn't care at that point. As a viewer I was not interested in the second part of the movie.

This movie really is all about the lip ferret Mordecai is growing and trying to get his wife to accept. One of the more mildly amusing moments is Gwyneth Paltrow gaging after each kiss, and Mortdecai's sympathetic gaging in reaction to her gaging. Really not enough to carry the movie but it did put a smile on my face. The 'stash is so absurd that it has more of a personality than the character did.