marlowe movie reviews rotten tomatoes

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Marlowe Reviews

Director Paul Bogart goes for a weird atmospheric mix, keeping Marlowe's crummy, picturesque 1940s-style office intact in the Los Angeles of the 1960s. It is ridiculous when contrasted to the hippie scene, the high rises, the TV production centers.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2021

enjoyable as a period piece, letting us see an older character in a then-modern setting

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 2, 2013

Garner's not the best Marlowe, but he's far from the worst - which also applies to this movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 31, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 22, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 19, 2004

We don't care what happens next because we don't understand what happened before. Marlowe becomes enjoyable only on a basic level; it's fun to watch the action sequences

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 23, 2004

A thoroughly enjoyable Philip Marlowe mystery.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Feb 18, 2003

Screen Rant

Why marlowe’s rotten tomatoes score is so low (is it that bad).

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Despite indie auteur Neil Jordan teaming up with Liam Neeson and an all-star cast, Marlowe has a surprisingly low Rotten Tomatoes score, but that may not be an indication that the film is bad. Currently, the neo-noir has a 26% score from critics and 48% from audiences, which is abysmal given the prestigious names attached to it. The film follows Raymond Chandler's famous literary detective Philip Marlowe (Neeson) as he tries to track down the unscrupulous ex-lover of a wealthy heiress (Diane Kruger), a case that plunges him deep into the seedy underbelly of Hollywood's glamorous Golden Age.

Marlowe has many of the signature components of a classic film noir, with eccentric villains, femme fatales, and a sense of moral decay throughout the mean streets of Los Angeles. Over the past 80 years, Philip Marlowe has been portrayed by several actors in adaptations of Chandler's crime novels, but Marlowe takes its inspiration from John Banville's more recent book "The Black-Eyed Blonde," and the changes that make Marlowe a more modern investigator might have hindered fans' interpretation of the hard-boiled private investigator, often associated with being a fast-talking, world-weary antihero.

RELATED: Marlowe's 6 Biggest Changes To The Noir Book

Marlowe Repeats Classic Film Noir Tropes But Lacks A Compelling Story

Despite it being firmly grounded in the '30s and exhibiting signs of a classic film noir, Marlowe lacks a compelling story. According to critic A.A. Dowd, Marlowe "lacks the intricacy of Chandler's best mysteries, that sense of being helplessly pulled into a labyrinth of compounding revelations." (via Chron ) , heavily implying that there is no sense of these elements in Marlowe's story. There are certain hallmarks that make film noir movies instantly recognizable, such as an unsettling sense of paranoia, and tension that mounts with every twist and turn in the mystery, that this Marlowe mystery lacks.

As the search for Nico Peterson continues, Marlowe should be experiencing an unnerving sense of being watched and followed, particularly by entities who wish to remain in the shadows while they use him to find Nico for themselves. By the time Nico's sister is killed shortly after meeting with Marlowe, the suspense should be almost unbearable as audiences wait with bated breath to see who's next. Unfortunately, the story is neither as dynamic nor compelling enough to make its intrigue believable, and it flounders without a sense of urgency.

Does The Classic Film Noir Style Still Work Today?

While The Batman was highly successful in incorporating noir elements, the more classic film noir Nightmare Alley flopped , making the case for Marlowe's conventional approach to the genre a tough sell. Critic James Berardinelli is a little kinder towards Neeson's performance and thinks that while Marlowe doesn't exactly do a disservice to its main character, it doesn't "re-invent the character for a new era and its attendant audience." (via Reel Views ) but Jake Coyle finds the whole story "enveloped with a strong smell of mothballs, feels like an old pinstripe suit that’s been taken out of the closet for no apparent reason." (via Associated Press ).

Neo-noir movies like Se7en and Memento seem to find the right mixture of suspense and intrigue while keeping the genre fresh with modern sensibilities. Even though it's based on a recent novel that tries to give Philip Marlowe a worthy update, this Marlowe adaptation struggles to convey anything new to justify its existence. It might take some time for Marlowe to solve Nico's disappearance, but it's no mystery why the flat revisionist take on a classic character, along with poor pacing, is where Marlowe misfires.

MORE: 1 Gruesome Marlowe Detail Proves Why Film Noir Works Better Today