WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS.
This is yet another independent art-house movie. It is film noir apparently shot in colour by the actors using handhelds. It uses Soderbergh's Out_of_Sight(1998) technique (stalls the footage while the sound continues, the footage catches up later) to good effect. The main task of Where's Marlowe is probably to examine platonic male relationships (male bonding vs male competition) although ostensibly it's a mockumentary about how a couple of film school jocks come to agree to have their subjects turn the tables on them.
The plot revolves around a routine surveillance job at a private investigating firm which suddenly turns into a Black Dahlia case for the remaining PI when his partner turns out to have been intimately involved. When that mature partnership falls apart, we see a more immature one, the one between the filmmakers, begin to follow in similar footsteps. Despite all their best intentions, the men remain isolated by their inattentiveness to each other's emotional lives. When one PI resorts to a video introduction agency, we realize he is simply trying to fill a need not met by his male relationship(s).
Quite gently, Where's Marlowe makes film noir itself seem nothing more than an expression of stodgy male attitudes. Every character - those who populate the case files of the LA PI firm, the staff at the firm, as well as the filmmakers themselves - are cookie cutouts, clichés, as per noir formula. By allowing the audience to be flies on the wall, and by using the ending as a ploy, Where's Marlowe becomes a self-referential (in computer language, "recursive") mockumentary, but the extremely surgical casting has assured that we get our money's worth out of the mockumentary style. Special mention must be made of Elizabeth Schofield's and John Livingston's performances. Miguel Ferrer is of course perfect as the sardonic but macho-foolish PI, Joe Boone (he criticizes the filmmaker's previous documentary about the New York water supply for not having any sex scenes). But Schofield's Monica Collins is also spot on as the mesmerizing yet dignified wife, as is Livingston's puppy-Elvis-like charisma as AJ Edison, the showier young filmmaker.
All the characters are kindly comments about human frailties, and there are enough highly talented supporting actors to flesh out each and every cliché admirably. Everyone is very good, but sadly the noir limitations make most of them forgettable.
In its distinct second half, the movie forces our naive young filmmakers to cope with the more mature themes of sex, betrayal and murder, yet somehow still come up with the documentary output we see. Wilt (Mos Def) and AJ (John Livingston) represent a yin and yang whole when they together decide to "get into the beauty part" of what they were taught in class. Both young filmmakers double as replacement PI's, but it is only AJ who is foolish enough to ape Boone. Livingston is both funny and cringeworthy, and he gives Ferrer some funny turns slapping the young puppy down. Ferrer is hilarious when he literally bellows at AJ at the mansion door, and when he sardonically orders the self-important kid off his desk. So Boone gets a run for his money, but the cookie cutout formula is never in danger. Mos Def's Wilt is the sensible yin to AJ's over-the-top yang in their partnership. This is a fairly crucial point. Actual results of their co-operation might be a bit hit-and-miss, but it's a joy watching their camaraderie in action. They are always on the same page, even in disagreement, except when AJ tries to pull rank on Wilt for no good reason. Somehow, Wilt has the patience of Job with him, and we wonder why. Wilt is wonderfully non-violent for a black man. I loved his rejection of the fake gun. Sadly he only has one really funny line, an improvised Arnie takeoff: "Ahm lookin foah Sara Conna".
We conclude that partnerships and relationships - if they last any appreciable length of time - take work, because people have to grow up in them. They can be either good or bad depending on the strength of character of the people who constitute them. Unless you 1) choose well first and then 2) keep paying constant attention to keep up with your partner's perceptions and emotions, your relationships may turn out to be a liability instead. Most people are pretty good at 1) but suck at 2).
The self-mocking is very refined, very competent, but I couldn't warm to the deliberately ambiguous ending, using a cheap ploy which is supposed to be worthy of our time. Sadly it isn't, but it's an added bonus to discover you can plumb new depths with the rewind button.
The soundtrack, consisting mostly of a continuous loud bongo riff that never goes anywhere, is rather annoying, but there is a bonus impromptu session at the end of the credits. Our two filmmakers, Wilt and AJ, harmonize without accompaniment to the, ah, usually artist-defeating Miles Davis classic All Blues, which, for those who don't know, sounds like all jazz instead. This would seem overly ambitious for these young actors, until you realize that Mos Def, aka Dante Beze, is a respected Brooklyn-based hip hop artist, and John Livingston was Musical Director to a prestigious a-capella group of Stanford undergrads.
There is real death, urns, loved ones and cremations, not to mention violence for violence, some of it even unintentional. Along the way there are also prolific and truly humongous examples of "canine malfeasance", rubber guns that get you just as dead, and PI's who rather fancy themselves as worthy improvisers in documentaries such as this. If you find yourself not really fond of this kindly mockumentary, then watch it again. Writer/ Director Daniel Pyne has certainly had plenty of time to hone his subtle messages, so you should take your time too. He does know what he's doing. 8.5 out of 10.
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