Charlie Mortdecai. He is one of those guys who just sounded so good on paper. However, as the subject of a movie, well...he flat-out suuucks.
Consider the pitch for Mortdecai, the movie based on the Kyril Bonfiglioli character: He’s an anti-hero art dealer on a race against the clock to recover a stolen Goya that’s said to contain the code to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold.
What sets Lord Mortdecai apart – yes, he has a title to boot – from the lot is he’s a Brit-ccentric bon vivant (his quite elaborate and ridikolous mustache is the proof of it!) with a rather large...tax debt (gotcha!), and he is played by Johnny Depp.
What could possibly go wrong!
Everything, as it turns out.
There is nothing amusing about Mortdecai. The movie – directed by David Koepp, an esteemed popcorn screenwriter who now probably will be encouraged to stick with screenwriting – wears its Ocean’s-esque aspirations on its stylish sleeve. And yet, it fails, spectacularly, to reach the levity or smarts of the George Clooney vehicle, the poor thing.
Mortdecai, as it turns out, is the only person capable enough to recover the painting, which may have caught the attention of an international terrorist ring. And, natch, that of some Russian thugs, although I am not entirely clear on that part (I may have gone sleepy-bye-bye for a bit). The fact that MI5 comes to him for assistance should be, well, OK...you know how Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes is like, this necessary evil to the authorities on his show?
Well, Mortdecai’s more like, a really annoying evil. Should be fun – but he ain’t. At all.
Shame then that Depp proves incredibly tiresome and, worse, beyond-boring as the idiosyncratic character (he’s an amoral horndog...with a heart!). ’Cause if we know anything about the actor that’s that he commits to a role. Even worse, the movie is a thankless affair for his supporting cast, which includes a hammy Gwyneth Paltrow (she plays his posh wife Johanna), Paul Bettany as his devoted manservant, a fellow named Jock Strapp (yes, seriously), Ewan McGregor as the government agent who hands him his mission papers, and Olivia Munn as a nymphomaniac billionairess who has designs of her own on that Goya.
Mortdecai is an entertaining offering by all means, but, in actuality, it’s the opposite. Fingers crossed this will be the last time Depp’s allowed to play an amalgamation of tics passing as a would-be one-of-a-kind persona created for the screen for a while.
And, please, let this be a lesson for my girl G.P. If it’s too good to be true – and again, this did sound kinda foolproof – then, clearly, it could be.
That being said, Gwyn, if someone comes at ya offering you a part in a star-studded remake of an Academy Award-winning Argentinean film, uhm, do not pull out of that, by GOOPness gracious.
My Rating *
Photo: Lionsgate Films.
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