The Singing Detective

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The Singing Detective

R

2003

1h 49m

Drama

Musical

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

40%

Tomatometer

106 Reviews

39%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

Hospitalized for a severe skin disease, a bitter writer (Robert Downey Jr.) imagines he is the gumshoe from his novel.

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Critics Consensus

Delightful performance from Robert Downey Jr. can't save The Singing Detective's transition from TV to the big screen.

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Jeremiah Kipp

Slant Magazine

01/17/2004

1.5/4

Potter's gaze into the man's dark sexual and familial secrets isn't about one man's oppression, but about his self-imposed melodrama.

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Marjorie Baumgarten

Austin Chronicle

12/07/2003

2/5

Perpetually feels as if it were a good idea that was never fully thought through.

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Richard Roeper

Ebert & Roeper

11/17/2003

... it is just a little bit too much of a disjointed mess.

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Kaleem Aftab

The List

04/17/2019

3/5

This film seems confused to the point that it is impossible to come to grips with the intriguing study of one man's fetid psyche which the film is supposed to essay.

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Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

05/09/2009

C

The film's colorful song-and-dance set pieces rely on lip-synced '50s songs that are the weakest link in a bumbling but gregarious movie.

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Film Threat

12/06/2005

1.5/5

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Jennifer E

05/10/2024

I only made it 30 minutes into this boring movie. Horrible dialog.

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Landon S

04/03/2024

This movie was awful. What was going on. Singing was the only decent part of the film. Robert Downey jr was a dirty skeeze pig in this movie and it's no wonder this movie gets bad reviews.

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Valeria M

05/27/2023

Un'ottima idea e un ottimo cast che non spiccano il volo.

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steve d

01/31/2023

I am embarrassed for everyone involved.

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10/23/2019

It is entertaining even if you don't always know what is happening. RDJ does look pretty disgusting in this but there is moments when he doesn't. Only thing i didn't enjoy was that they didn't actually have RDJ sing, I feel like they should have.

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07/06/2018

The Singing Detective was not at all what I expected. It is a film that is all about a writer who is suffering in the hospital and he hallucinates about multiple different stories, which all start converging around him. I’m never all that fond of movies that have no clearly defined rules or proper grounding in reality and this one falls into that a number of times. Occasionally the fantasy makes sense and it is a symptom of his real-life paranoia, but other times it is chaos to the point where I can’t connect the dots. The visions are very random and don’t contain a consistent theme because his mind wanders a lot. I like some of the therapy sequences with Mel Gibson, because that’s when reality seems to be the most important aspect. I also would have been fine if they wanted to spend more time in the world of his book with a detective and gangsters, but that never feels like a priority. The ending makes no sense to me, and I was left scratching my head. I’m sure there are some people who might enjoy this kind of mind-bending exploration of a writer’s damaged psyche, but I was underwhelmed. Also, it was very disappointing that The Singing Detective was a Lip-Syncing Detective through most of the film.

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Keith Gordon

Director

Robert Downey Jr.

Dan Dark

Robin Wright

Nicola

Mel Gibson

Dr. Gibbon

Jeremy Northam

Mark Binney

Katie Holmes

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Synopsis

Hospitalized for a severe skin disease, a bitter writer (Robert Downey Jr.) imagines he is the gumshoe from his novel.

Director: Keith Gordon
Producer: Mel Gibson, Steven Haft, Bruce Davey
Distributor: Airborne Productions Inc., Paramount Pictures
Production Co: Haft Entertainment, E1 Entertainment, Icon Entertainment International
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Musical
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 7, 2003, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 21, 2010
Box Office (Gross USA): $336.5K
Runtime: 1h 49m
Sound Mix: Surround, Dolby SR

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