Mortdecai

As we are in the midst of awards season for movies, there seems to be an expectation that every movie that is released at the moment has to be better than the last and by doing so we forget that movies also serve as entertainment. Whilst David Koepp's Mortdecai may not win any Oscars, BAFTAs or Golden Globes, it is a very fun movie and I feel like I need to see a good fun one every once in a while.

Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is an aristocratic art dealer who has fallen on some financial hard times and is only days away from complete insolvency. After the murder of a painting restorer, he is enlisted by MI5 agent Inspector Martland (Ewan McGregor) to hunt down the killer. So with his trusty manservant Jock (Paul Bettany) in tow, they set off in search of the painting. Meanwhile, Charlie's wife Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow) begins her own investigation into the missing painting.

One thing I think this movie suffers from is an overcomplicated story. There are parts where I felt as though it was tripping over plot points just to get to some laughs that occasionally fall flat. However, I did find that the characters were suitably well rounded enough to feel them as real people. The movie also takes a lot of time in its transitions to the parts of the world that it takes place. Every time we change city (or even a different part of the same city) we get an animated fly-over of the globe, which I felt worked once, but every time after that was just annoying.

The performances were all fun though. All the actors were playing against type, except for Depp. His usual hammed up performance came in handy here, making himself slightly effete and terribly in love with his freshly grown moustache, which he checks in a mirror of some sort every five seconds. Paltrow has a fun time playing his long suffering wife, although I can't see why she is still together with Mortdecai (and yet at the same time I can). Ewan McGregor's character has been in love with Johanna forever, which I thought was a fun touch to a character whose main job is to give exposition and therefore can be a tiny bit tedious.

The supporting cast is great too. Paul Bettany, normally quite a dramatic actor, plays the rather stiff but reliable manservant Jock and is just a joy in any scene. Jeff Goldblum turns up for a few scenes but the amount of screen time he gets is tantamount to murder. Olivia Munn plays his nymphomaniac daughter but has nothing really to do but be a provocative character.

All in all Mortdecai may not be the best movie out right now, but it surely is a relief from some of the more emotionally invested movies that are out at the moment. I am a huge fan of slapstick and I felt as though this had some fun moments of that.