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Motherless Brooklyn's imposing length requires patience, but strong performances and a unique perspective make this a mystery worth investigating. Read critic reviews
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Movie Info
Lionel Essrog is a lonely private detective who doesn't let Tourette's syndrome stand in the way of his job. Gifted with a few clues and an obsessive mind, Lionel sets out to solve the murder of Frank Minna -- his mentor and only friend. Scouring the jazz clubs and slums of Brooklyn and Harlem, Essrog soon uncovers a web of secrets while contending with thugs, corruption and the most dangerous man in the city.
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Rating: R (Language Throughout|Brief Drug Use|Some Sexual References|Violence)
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Genre: Mystery & thriller, Crime, Drama
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Original Language: English
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Director: Ed Norton
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Producer: Bill Migliore, Ed Norton, Michael Bederman, Gigi Pritzker, Rachel Shane
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Writer: Ed Norton, Jonathan Lethem
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Release Date (Theaters): wide
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Box Office (Gross USA): $9.3M
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Runtime:
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Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
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Production Co: Class 5 Films, Warner Bros. Pictures
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Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)
Cast & Crew
News & Interviews for Motherless Brooklyn
Critic Reviews for Motherless Brooklyn
Audience Reviews for Motherless Brooklyn
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Full of intrigue, Motherless Brooklyn is a compelling film noir based on a bestselling novel. Set in 1950s New York, a PI with Tourette's Syndrome seeks to avenge his boss' murder by breaking the case he was working on. Starring Edward Norton, Alec Baldwin, Willem Defoe, and Bruce Willis, the cast is pretty good and delivers solid performances. However the script is kind of weak; as it's hard to follow all the characters and conspiracies going on. And the pacing is rather slow, allowing time for the investigation to unfold and the mystery to build. Still, it's a beautiful looking film, with extraordinary detail in creating 1950s New York. The score too is especially well-done, capturing the noir tone. Motherless Brooklyn was a passion project of Norton's, and it really shows.
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Probably a little too long but I appreciate that Norton made his main villain a lightly fictionalized Robert Moses and had the good sense to cast Alec Baldwin in the role.
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I remember reading this novel back in college, so it's been a long road for Jonathan Lethem's crime story to find its way to the big screen. Motherless Brooklyn is a decade-plus passion project for star/adapter/director Edward Norton, and it's easy to see why an actor would want to latch onto the lead role. Lionel Essrog (Norton) suffers from Tourette's syndrome and is given to verbal and physical tics he needs to indulge or else his brain feels like it will explode. He's our eyes and ears into a criminal world that views him as a freak. It's an intriguing vulnerability given sympathy, forethought, and it's an intriguing way to make something old new again through a disadvantaged lens. Norton is great in the lead and Lionel feels like a companion portrait to Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, another struggling man given to unconformable physical outbursts that make him feel isolated from society. The book was fascinating from being inside this unique headspace and understanding how Lionel's brain operated with obsessions and various pressure valves. The movie, which Norton rewrote completely and set in the 1950s, is an acceptable film noir, but without that specific perspective it would get lost. It's handsomely made and has plenty of enjoyable actors in supporting roles. There's an intelligence to the storytelling and power dynamics, but the movie is also a bit too smart for its own good, losing its way in a convoluted mystery where the pieces don't so much add up as they're just given to you after a long enough wait. And the wait is long. This is 144 minutes and takes its sweet time, applying more and more layers of intrigue and period settings like Norton is checking a list of Noir Elements to include in his first directing work in 19 years (Keeping the Faith, anyone?). The world itself is surface-level interesting but the main character is the real hook, so getting more of the world without going deeper on the character, or expressly placing him in different predicaments where he can utilize his unheralded abilities, feels like wheel spinning. Motherless Brooklyn is strictly for genre fans or those who don't need much more from their movies than a high-concept quirk. Nate's Grade: B
nathan z Super Reviewer -
TIC TIC BOOM! – My Review of MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN (3 ½ Stars) I love a good pulpy novel sometimes, and exactly a year ago, I picked up Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, published in 1999, completely unaware that an Oscar-nominated actor had been trying to bring it to the screen for the past two decades. It just sounded like a fun read, wherein a detective with an unnamed tic disorder similar to Tourette Syndrome attempts to solve a murder. While the story itself didn't wow me, I enjoyed the first person point of view of a man who appears to burst at the seams in order to formulate words and ideas. The novel had a giddy rush whenever we took a peek into our protagonist's mind. Ed Norton, who writes, produces, directs and stars, has radically steered away from the book, changing the time period from the 1990s to the 1950s, and basically jettisoning everything which occurs after the inciting incident. In many ways he has come up with a more compelling, more relevant story, but it's all wrapped in the all-too familiar tropes of a film noir. The checklist: • Voiceover narration. Check. • Moody, Edward Hopper style cinematography. Check. • A beautiful, mysterious woman. Check. • Classic cars which go "Awooooga" when you hit the horn. Check. • An underbelly of corruption our hero can't begin to comprehend. Check. It seems as if he wanted to make his own Chinatown or L.A. Confidential and decided to shoehorn the bones of the novel into the genre to satisfy his itch. With an incredible cast and a look at how New York City developed into the city we know today because of racist development policies, Norton has made a film worth seeing. Its punishing length, however, merely serviceable direction, and a too light tone keep it from crossing over into the classic territory of the great noirs. Norton plays Lionel Essrog, one of a quartet of former orphans "adopted" by Frank Minna (Bruce Willis in a warm turn) to work at his detective agency. After an amusing slow speed chase, someone ends up dead and Lionel and his cohorts, played by Bobby Cannavale, Dallas Roberts and Ethan Suplee, get to work to solve the crime. With limited clues, Lionel, who soon breaks from the pack and works alone, leans into his disorder and photographic memory to go down the rabbit hole of NYC corruption. Along the way, he meets a black female attorney named Laura (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who fights the injustice of urban planning wrought by Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin), based on Robert Moses, a real titan of NYC, who presaged the rise of the Donald Trumps of the world. The film provides an invaluable history lesson of the city which will prevent you from ever looking at its bridges the same way again. With fine, memorable turns from Leslie Mann, Willem Dafoe, Michael Kenneth Williams, Cherry Jones, it's still Baldwin who delivers the best performance in a blazing, scary turn not seen from him since Glengarry Glen Ross. He's a classic villain who thinks his actions are for the greater good even as he spouts racist ideology, abuses women, and tramples all over human rights. Remind you of anyone currently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Norton brings a sweet energy to his detective, allowing us to simultaneously empathize and stand in awe of his character's special gifts. He makes for quite an original romantic lead, giving his scenes with Mbatha-Raw a special kick. He stands up for what's right, but in true noir fashion, the steamrolling ahead of someone's twisted version of an urban utopia cannot be stopped. Instead, Essrog makes a low key, low stakes decision in the end. As such, the film lacks the bitter nihilism of its predecessors. In an interview with Norton at the screening I attended, he claimed a more foreboding ending would not go down easily in these tense times. This may be true, but it leaves us with a slightly upbeat, toothless film. I still recommend it for the troublesome past it resurrects, along with an engaging story and game cast. Norton takes a big swing here, but I can't help but thinking this would have resonated more from a character and story perspective had it remained set in the 90s. Norton, though, made a film lover's decision and gets major points for shining a light on the ugliness of a city's history. Unfortunately, noir is meant to be dark, and this film sidesteps the defining characteristic of its genre. It looks like noir, but, to paraphrase the classic, "Forget it, folks. It's not Chinatown."
glenn g Super Reviewer
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