Photo courtesy of Mortdecai/Facebook
When people hear the name Johnny Depp, they might immediately associate him with the concept of a successful entertainer. An A-lister with an eccentric and quirky personality, he made himself known in the ‘80s and ‘90s through “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” and “Ed Wood.” In the early 2000s, he reached superstar status with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise and “Once Upon a Time in Mexico.” However, somewhere in the late 2000s, his performances started blending and it felt like he was either overacting or phoning it in just to be working. This has been exacerbated by the failures of such films as “The Lone Ranger” and “Dark Shadows.”
His latest film, “Mortdecai,” which is adapted from a cult series of novels in the 1970s, shows that this downward trend is not likely to end any time soon.
David Koepp, known for writing the first two “Jurassic Park” films and the fourth entry in the “Indiana Jones” franchise, directed the film, and Eric Aronson wrote it. The audience follows a foppish and dubious art dealer name Charlie Mortdecai, tasked by MI-5 — the British secret service — to obtain a painting containing a code that may or may not lead to a lost Nazi bank account. Along the way, he must contend with pursuing Russian mobsters, the demands of his MI-5 handler, his wife and an international terrorist.
Marketed as an action-comedy in the vein of the Peter Sellers-helmed “Pink Panther” franchise from the 70s and 80s, the film looks and sounds like its inspirations, but comes across as forced rather than natural. Most of the comedy centers around Depp’s antics and interactions with those around him. However, it all falls flat due to either Depp’s overacting or the bad timing of the comic scenes. Certain gags, including one involving his mustache, are repeated to a negating effect, making just how unfunny the story is even more apparent.
The only real laughs the film elicits from its audiences are due in large part to Paul Bettany. The actor portrays the title-character’s put-upon manservant, who takes care of any physical confrontations Depp’s character gets into. He is the straight man to Depp’s screwball antics, which makes him even funnier, however it still does not save the movie from feeling flat for the majority of its nearly two-hour runtime. Also starring are Gwyneth Paltrow as Depp’s sharp-minded wife and Ewan McGregor as Mortdecai’s old-rival-turned-MI5-agent. Olivia Munn and Jeff Goldblum make appearances as a rival art dealer and his nymphomaniac daughter respectively, but enter late into the film and are criminally under-used.
The anti-comedic nature that permeates the whole story is comparable to the Steve Martin-helmed remake of Peter Sellers’s ‘Pink Panther’ franchise in 2005. Both films are the same in that they involve a bumbling main character whose overconfidence makes him a pain to work with, as evidenced by his interactions with friends and enemies far more competent than him. Both films also try to replicate the ‘70s style of humor employed by their inspirations, but the settings in the present make it difficult for the humor to “click” with a different generation of audiences, as evidenced by the off timing, the stilted dialogue, and the filmmaker’s bad direction.
In a Wrap.com article titled “Johnny Depp ‘Mortdecai’ Has Franchise Written All Over It, Lionsgate Says,” dated Feb. 7, 2014, the CEO of Lionsgate and distributor, Jon Feltheimer, stated his intent to construct a franchise around the Mortdecai character and his adventures. Comparing Mortdecai’s antics to those of Inspector Jacques Clouseau from the famous “Pink Panther” film franchise, Feltheimer also noted how much Depp loved playing the character. If more of Mortdecai were to come, then, in the opinion of this writer, it would be wise to hire a better director or writer.
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Follow Collin Chersi on Twitter: @PepperChersi
