It’s a good twenty years since Jonathan Lethem’s novel was published; based on the public and critical reaction, writer/director Edward Norton needn’t have bothered adapting the text from prose to screen. And yet there’s plenty to enjoy in Motherless Brooklyn, which, like The Goldfinch, is far from the dud that the box office might suggest; certainly, films about urban planning are rarely big news, but although it’s 144 minutes long, Norton’s film is idiosyncratic and often engaging.
Bruce Willis gets near-top billing, but is pretty much out of the film before the credits go up. Willis plays Frank Minna, a local gangster with a penchant for rescuing children; it’s through this method that he’s a mentor to Lionel Essrog, a bright young man with Tourette’s syndrome. Essrog also has a perfect memory, and listens in on one of Minna’s meetings shortly before his father-figure is shot. Piecing together various abstract clues, Hamlet-style, Essrog starts to investigate Trump-ian property baron Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin) and also the businessman’s brother Paul (Willem Dafoe). Randolph has designs of the New York property market, but his methods are underhand, and Essrog is quickly out of his depth…
A film like this stands and falls on its villain, and Baldwin relishes the opportunity to play Randolph with saturnine charm. Whether he’s directly responsible for the violent killings that beset Essrog isn’t exactly clear, but it is obvious that Randolph has an evolved philosophy that penalises the poor. Motherless Brooklyn has a Chinatown-lite view of city corruption, and anyone interested in New York will enjoy the various allusions gathered here, as well as some eye-opening chat about Central Park
Norton is also an actor’s director, getting good work from his cast, and he also provides a happy centre as Essrog. Playing a character with a disability isn’t a great look in 2019, and yet there’s obvious reasons why it wouldn’t be easy to cast the role. Norton does well not to play Essrog’s verbal infelicities for laughs, and pulls off something rare and unexpected by having a disabled protagonist whose disability is not central to the narrative.
Motherless Brooklyn takes a few wrong turns; the background to Essrog’s detective agency is inadequately sketched in, and Minna leaves far too early to get a sense of who he was. But there’s a clear gap between the quality of Norton’s film and the public’s appreciation of what he’s done, and Motherless Brooklyn is worth recommending to the discerning viewer.
Don’t think this is even got much of a release at the time. I tend to stay clear of actor vanity projects and gangster films especially need pumped full of freshness to come alive. There is an absolutely fabulous book called The Power Broker by Robert Caro about the making of urban New York and anytime I read of someone making a film about small-time corruption I am always calling out for a major series about Robert Moses, a civil servant who wielded enormous power but was responsible for all the urban parks and freeways and changed the political power of the city.
This one passeed me by but it sounds interesting with a good cast. Yep I’ll put it on the 2ndary list.
Phew, cool, a good grown-up movie, flaws, yes, but watchable and engaging.
Have you done something strange to the settings of this post? In the reader it’s got like a foggy grey filter over it that other posts don’t. Not that it matters as I got clicked through on it anyway, just seems odd.
Not to my knowledge, I read them in another browsers to ensure mistakes and it looked fine. I’ll look again…thanks.
Not to worry, the link works, might be something playing up my end.
I think it was my end, It’s gone back to normal now.
Full refunds if not satisfied.
That is a peculiarity of the “reader”. It greys out the posts it thinks you’ve already read. Happens to me a lot when I go searching for bloggers to follow using book titles or authors.
But it appears to be completely random and as you noticed below, it’ll change at the drop of a hat.
I would encourage you all to read my posts multiple times.
Well, with how you “revise” your reviews, that’s not a bad idea….
The should be taught in every school, college and solid field advisory service.
What should be taught? Writing?
I fully concur!
If peeple wer ohnly as smart as me, dey cud right just phine with no problims.
Nhoww, if yuu meen reeeriting, den no, that is bed, vury bed. Wurds our like konkreet, in stoned.
My posts will hang in the Snithsonisn Art Gallery, and be as popular as the Getiesburg Address.
So, is that in invitation to assassinate you? Asking for a friend 😉
It is not. What gave you that impression?
The Gettysburg address. Abe Lincoln gave it. He was assassinated later. Cogitum ergo proximium, you were asking to be assassinated.
(is my faux latin cool or what?)
Abe Lincoln asked to be assassinated? Wut?
No, HE didn’t. But he set the example of writing a great speech then getting the axe. So I was wondering if you were trying to follow his example. Just wanted to be helpful….
I wouldn’t want an axe between the eyes if that’s what happened to Lincoln. They didn’t show that in the movie. Still, no reason to avoid writing, he didn’t review films did he?
It all depends if you view the Gettysburg address as a review of the movie Gettysburg or just a speech.
Since I believe that the past is simply there for us to make into our own image, I’m going to say Yes, he was a movie reviewer who got an axe between the eyes (Booth used tiny little axes for bullets, little known FACT)
And this is the film he reviewed?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vz5f9NOVuk
I don’t know. I keep my mind unsullied by such things.
Well, that must be what he was addressing. So call off your assassins, no assassinating please.
I was JUST asking, for a friend. Man, Mr Sensitive today.
Besides, assassins are wicked expensive now. They’ve unionized….
Teamster assassins?
Yep. They’ll ride a wagon right over you without batting an eyelash.
Then charge your grieving family for getting in their way…
They sound very Oregon Trail. Got anything more state of the art modern?
There are always the invisible robot ninja assassins. But the worldwide chip shortage has made their prices go so high that only the disgustingly wealthy (like movie reviewers) can afford them.
But, they’ve been upgraded with laser eyes, so if that’s your thing….
Ok, send a couple round, but I’m not giving them a head start. I could use the workout.
Oh, you didn’t want to hire them as Protection?
Well, the rates are different for that then.
If you rent 3, you get a free monkey plushey too….
Nope. Do your worst.
at 5am tomorrow, eastern standard time, I shall.
So you better have a good movie review I can sink my teeth into, unlike the last couple of namby pamby lets all get along movies you reviewed.
I mean, not ONE space alien abduction in this movie. How am I supposed to mock and jape at a movie without any space alien abductions?
I’ve got some Chevy Chase due for re-evaluation? Would that float your little boat?
Glad I’m not the onlly one!