When is a film so bad it’s good?
Film history is littered with movies that are so bad they become good. There are the unintentionally hilarious ones, the ones with such low production values, the ones with such over the top acting they never let you off the hook and then there is Mortdecai. This vehicle about a shonky art dealer starring Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor is one of the worst received movies in recent times, but is it so bad it’s good?
Depp plays Mortdecai; a fey British art dealer with a flexible attitude towards the law and Gwyneth Paltrow plays his posh wife. Ewan McGregor plays a police officer and is the sort of straight man in the piece. The script is based on the novel Don’t Point That Thing at Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli and is so over the top and filled with so much strange idiosyncratic British behaviour, it just challenges you not to snicker.
But here is the rub, as bad as it is, it actually has some genuinely funny moments and even though they may be at the expense of that perceived British upper crust life style, they are still funny. The Brits are going to love to hate this. Unfortunately there are not enough of these moments to sustain the entire 107-minute running time and the film induces as many groans as laughs.
Will the years be kind to this film? I don’t really think so and it’s life at the box office will probably be a short one, so if there’s an interest don’t delay. Are the chances good that this will become a new generation’s Plan 9 From Outer Space? It may be strange to use this word in this review but the film is actually too good to be that bad (but barely).
Rob Hudson
www.mortdecaithemovie.com
