Motherless Brooklyn

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source: Motherless Brooklyn

Ed Norton does an amazing performance. Alec Baldwin was terrific!

The esthetics and styling of this movie were great, that's what the 2 stars are for. The movie was painfully boring with hardly any story line and 2hours 35 mins long that felt like 4 hours. Ed Norton directed , wrote the screenplay and acted. Sorry Ed you are not that talented. I really got tired of looking at his face in every scene, and his mediocre acting in this movie. Don't forget to take your pillow if by any chance you want to go to see this movie, you may catch a good snooze.

Motherless Brooklyn (opens Friday Nov 1) My friend won advance screening tickets tonight for Motherless Brooklyn, which turned out to be a rather deluxe affair with wine and food served beforehand in the "VIP" cinema area of a cinema in Vancouver, Canada. We needn't have worried that all these emoluments were buttering us up for a bad movie-it's a really good one and likely to get Oscar nominations for Edward Norton, who not only stars as Lionel but also directs and co-wrote the screen adaptation from a novel. When I was grasping for the real world connection I thought I saw in this feature drama, my husband prompted me the sociopathic mogul, Moses Randolph, depicted by Alec Baldwin in the film is only a thinly papered over Robert Moses. That smasher of neighbourhoods in the name of grand schemes had a leading role in the 2016 documentary Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, about Jane Jacobs and her fight for the soul of New York City. (That soul, I'm hearing, has suffered some blows of late.) This 1950s period film has an instant classic feel to it. It has enough Hollywood dynamics and star power in it to pull in a larger audience but there's some very nice cinematography and lots of social relevance, both in the good old USA and in satellite nations like good old Canada, where I live, with regard to present-day politics and power-wielding at various levels by wealthy people. This is particularly the case when it comes to who runs city hall and gets to force out large numbers of people from the communities where they belong. The city where I live has an ongoing struggle for which Motherless Brooklyn has relevant things to say. Even as I travelled to the cinema in question, I was distracted by the ugliness of the rapid-transit corridor it sits on which has been heavily redeveloped since the line went in for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The construction cranes are still plentiful, the featureless higher density buildings lining the route have an oppressive, mountain-view blocking dominance. Robert Moses/Moses Randolph or whoever wears their snappy shoes would love it. Almost the only thing I was indifferent to in the film was the "brain thing" affliction of Norton's character, which seemed like some kind of cross between Tourette Syndrome, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and a revisiting of Dustin Hoffman's Rainman character, at times. The syndrome had relevance to the story, though, and there were some nicer moments in how it was depicted. In addition to Ed Norton's strong performance and Willem Defoe's decent contribution, I enjoyed seeing Michael Kenneth Williams as a mellow jazz musician (I always think of him as Omar in The Wire.) Alec Baldwin was convincingly evil, though I think some real life power mongers prettify their harsh decisions, to themselves and others.

Motherless Brooklyn There were several distinct problems with this movie and many good things. What was good Edward Norton gave a strong and faultless acting performance as did the rest of the cast. The atmosphere of 50's New York and musical score was immensely evocative and comprehensively realised. What was problematic The narrative drive ran out of steam as so much of the labyrinthine plot had similar repetitive scenes, it was unvarying. Overly long led to viewer exhaustion, of the 50 people in my viewing 20 had walked out by the 80 minute marker. The subject matter of municipal corruption, sibling jealousy and Tourette's syndrome was hardly designed to get the juices flowing. Ultimately it was overlong and repetitive it could have been so much better with some editing and some more action.

Employing at least half a dozen incidentals and characters from Chinatown (1973) Ed Norton saddled with a case of Tourettes channels Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes in this overlong detective that supposedly takes place in the late 50s while borrowing liberally from other periods. Wearing many hats both literally and figuratively the auteur/director draws a split decision with his excellent choice in hats. Sam Spade's partner is whacked by triggermen who may be in the employ of legendary NY planning commissioner Robert Moses (Alec Baldwin) who is destroying black neighborhoods when Miles Davis (Michael Williams) comes to the rescue, kind of; the players are all very reasonable facsimiles. It makes for the film's greatest mystery, how do they pull it off without being sued? Norton's direction is sluggish as the film plods along with overlong scenes at a club and a pace killing heart to heart with the female lead. He even seems to sabotage his suspenseful moments by being repetitive in situations while his vintage autos convey an artificial look with their with showroom glow still in tact as they tool around Queens and Brooklyn. A smarmy, obnoxious music score does not help matters. Norton's tic is like a scratch on an album you're expecting after a few listens as he overloads scenes with introspective close-ups of himself, the film's meter running into overtime. Baldwin as the bellicose Moses blowing smoke through his nose is all flat bluster. Wilhelm DaFoe playing his brother is a hammy crank while the rest of the cast looks dull, acts depressed. Motherless Brooklyn is a moody mess.

Motherless Brooklyn is the long awaited passion project from writer/director/star Edward Norton that tells the story of a NYC Private Investigator who with Tourette's who tries to solve the murder of his mentor. It is based off of the 1999 novel of the same name and after 20 years in development has finally made it to the big screen. Right off the bat Motherless Brooklyn boasts an incredible cast of A list actors including Bruce Willis, Willem Dafoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw who all do a terrific job as well as our lead played by Edward Norton himself who manages to pull of this role of a man dealing with Tourette's flawlessly. If this was 1999 I could see him winning for best actor for sure. The movie is also wonderfully detailed. Norton manages to bring the 1950s to vibrant light through the costumes and the cars and the looks. The cinematography is also fantastic. It's a beautiful looking film managing to capture the 1950s perfectly on screen. However for me this is where most of the positives end. Motherless Brooklyn has problem with flat uninteresting characters and dialogue as well as a pace that moves incredibly slow you at times feel like your watching a 3 hours movie rather than a 2 hour 20 minute film. The films runtime and pacing completely destroy any excitement that could be found in the film. However, with some genuinely good acting beautiful cinematography and a committed performance from Edward Norton Motherless Brooklyn ends up being a very disappointing film with some good components throughout the rest of the mess.

Edward Norton is a talented man! I was enthralled, I laughed, I screamed; I was captivated. The other big names pulled their weight Bruce Willis- "get my hat ya mook!" - was brief but effective as his role as head detective. I especially liked the morose yet determined character William Defoe played. The jazz scene was a treat. All the authentic time period cars and fine details he set, along with the lighting and framing give you what you really need and didn't know it in a movie... I hope this movie does well, but I think it's probably too great a project to gain as many accolades as it deserves! Can't wait to see what he directs next!

Really good story fantastic performance by bruce Willis and the rest of the cast it's a must watch