The Illusion Islands, Ayiyi Productions, and Frame 12 Productions present The Private Eye: a noisy, pulpy indie movie that parodies classic Film Noir and the wider detective genre. It stars stand-up comedian turned movie star Matt Rife as the eponymous Private Eye, Clare Grant of Changeland and Walk The Line fame, and Denzel Whitaker, who has appeared in The Great Debaters, Training Day, and the groundbreaking Black Panther. The Private Eye was directed and written by Jack Cook in his debut as the sole director of a feature film no less with additional writing credits from producer Hope Ayiyi and Rosalinda Books.
Sitting on his laurels after having solved one big case a spree of DVD store robberies private detective Mort Madison has hit upon hard times. No work comes through the door, booze is most of his expenses. One day Michelle walks into his office Michelle played by Clare Grant who hires him out of nowhere for an impenetrable case that leads Mort down a rabbit hole of his own pasts forcing him to confront the fractured nature of his mind against itself.
The Private Eye Is a Fun but Shallow Parody of Classic Film NoirSporadically strong yet frequently weak should be sporadically strong yet frequently weak? Such is the writing on display in The Private Eye which often trades in Noir clichés that unfortunately can’t quite capitalize on themselves. Frequently there’s an almost cartoonish quality to dialogue that isn’t supported by most performances. How heightened and stylized words were often undercut by how plainly they were delivered. Many voice-over narrations are excellent because every now & then they’re delivered with terrific gravitas sometimes injecting back into parts of this movie we feel too far removed from its origins As comedy goes jokes land unevenly sure some might even say erratically but funniest moments feel like misjudged attempts at sincerity. Mort’s flatly literal parsing of the world around him has some great deadpan beats, and every sequence featuring the scumbag therapist David has comedic potential lurking just below the surface.
Despite its title very little of this detective movie is dedicated to mysteries or solving them. The only real sleuthing that occurs is Mort analyzing women around him in vaguely misogynistic ways. Through Michelle Private Eye as a figure his alternately reverent and sour relationship to women are brilliantly satirized playing out Madonna whore complex in real time through this character alone w/ no other female characters present does it so effectively which I think might be interesting for people considering watching PPV ON DEMAND? At times Private Eye has an awkwardness that could be read as satirical jab at worst though more often than not comes off flatly acting out cliches unreflective of genre This lack leaves plot without many structural hallmarks Film Noir story thus making structure seem convoluted especially during first half where sections follow each other with little confluence between them but also allows film feel oneiric & bizarre in an interesting way that mimics mindset himself often just feels meandering.
The Private Eye works well with an unreliable narrator, and from the beginning, it has a sense of psychosexual drama simmering beneath its surface. It is very heavy on foreshadowing, which becomes less and less subtle as the movie goes on. The problem with telegraphing so much is that by the time you get to the reveal which in this case is handled in an almost tragically anticlimactic way all of the air has been sucked out of the final 20 minutes of The Private Eye. Mort’s closing monologue drags on and beats you over the head with what it’s trying to say about narrative, leaving audiences cold when they should be excited about how cleverly ambiguous everything else was.
The Star-Studded Cast Of The Private Eye Can’t Save Its Lackluster Script
Performances in The Private Eye are often slightly flat, lacking in stylization that would make it feel like a truly surreal or parodic detective homage. Supporting players frequently deliver their lines falteringly, which detracts from immersion during their moments. Matt Rife as Mort conjures a captivatingly affectless affectation: he projects the disillusioned archetype of a private eye spliced with directness that comes from seeing through every fictionalized lens at once. Between disaffectionate posturing and pompous lurches there is no pride nor shame but impenetrably huge ego too! Clare Grant is profoundly animated as Michelle; she ricochets between being seductive haughty judgmental nurturing forever changeable malleable unto herself whimming typical Femme Fatale’s clichés difficult performance delivered compellingly aplombatically but not sympathetically operatic heights necessary critique upon stock character required.
David (ELLIOT) is great as Michelle’s sleazy therapist who embodies him effortlessly by twitchily fidgeting around while constantly mumbling things like ‘hippy-dippy’ or referring back to his ‘therapeutic hippy mentality’ and such. His scene with Dee (Elijah Boothe) and Kaleb (Jared Brady) practically bubbles over with levity, though all three actors do an excellent job, it should be noted that Boothe really steals this particular show he had me in stitches! It’s also worth mentioning Denzel Whitaker’s Bradley, because even though he only appears briefly throughout the film, every time you see him on screen there is an undeniable magnetic pull towards what’s happening around him. Erik Griffin gives a hilarious performance as Crazy Carl, which comes as no surprise since he’s always been great at playing these types of extroverted characters.
However, despite having such a dialogue-heavy story line none manage create much narrative tension or jeopardy during their conversations except for when Bradley has his final extended conversation with Mort about halfway through The Private Eye.
The Private Eye’s production is admirably unpolished.
Directorially, The Private Eye has some basic continuity errors that are the hallmarks of independent filmmaking: crew moving around in the back of shots visible on reflective surfaces, eyelines sometimes feeling off when theoretically tracking characters who’ve left frame, breaking the 180-rule and making the scene’s geography feel fractured, costume configurations changing in the middle of scenes. All forgivable. These imperfections actually make The Private Eye more lovable as an indie project with some of the wires still showing.
Throughout its beginning, The Private Eye frequently shifts between color and monochrome as well as a much narrower shifted aspect ratio. This creates a bold visual dichotomy between Mort’s reality and fantasy life; it’s a brave creative choice that really pays off for this film by allowing it to make direct aesthetic homage to its source material/inspirations while also being a great storytelling vehicle. Unfortunately, after the very opening of the film this narrative device is used less and less until it’s all but forgotten by the end which sucks!
The cinematography shot by Rapha Bola is fine; there were some nicely executed tracking angles and a few interestingly composed moments with top-down perspective but other than that shots are relatively uninspired in formulation/composition mostly medium over the shoulder angles. There are wide establishing angles seen later in the film which work well (and should’ve been included more), however early ones within black and white segments feel oddly uncanny and actually detract from immersion into movie itself. Throughout there’s touch awkward framing here or there but what you don’t notice until moments of intimacy where camera feels uncomfortably voyeuristic in way that doesn’t feel deliberate.
From an editing standpoint, The Private Eye is massively let down by its bloated runtime within this near 2 hour film lies an infinitely better 90 minutes flick; almost every shot/sequence lingers for too long and it invariably squanders any interest or tension that’s managed to be built. For example; timelapse sequence of Mort cleaning his ramshackle apartment is excellent but drags on for too long, losing its shine by the end. Additionally, A.I. generated closing credits feel incredibly tacky.
The production design never really gets off the ground for The Private Eye set dressing often falls to very basic standard; lacking visual language or appeal, frequently failing to be interesting or naturalistic. There’s distinct & tragic lack of aesthetic taste/sensibility in a film that’s begging to feel visually dense/old-world charmed accentuated with this type of stuff; even foregoing these things entirely however production design fails to convincingly stage locations in an overly conventional way which belies lack of authenticity/imagination. Lighting remains naturalistic throughout The Private Eye which is shame as helps make film feel generic/visually uninteresting; sound being crisp/clear marred slightly by erratic music choices punctuating story/frequently clashing with voice over in jarring manner.
The Private Eye, as far as its costuming is concerned, does not have a well-defined style that runs through it except for Mort’s suit-and-jacket gumshoe uniform and David’s hippie get-up. Both of these outfits are great at visually communicating who the characters wearing them are; they also give them an unusual look to play off of. But in terms of makeup and hair, The Private Eye is almost uniformly excellent across the board, especially in Mort’s close-ups where all the little flourishes really sell his disheveledness.
The Private Eye Is Better as a Quick Joke Than a Feature-Length MovieThe Private Eye feels less like an actual send-up of Film Noir than it does stopping just short of being one stylistically parodic movie about detective stories it doesn’t take enough liberties with things like cinematography or production design or performances to ever fully send up any particular aspect this genre would demand. Another thing that could have vastly improved The Private Eye may have been compacting its runtime further, if given snappier editing along with some time compression here or there then whole sections which feel heavy-handed now might seem more substantial and engrossing While the film has its merits, execution lacks polish and taste which is disappointing considering how great this setup could’ve turned out to be.
In the end, The Private Eye comes across as something closer to a psycho-sexual romantic anti-comedy with detective story affectations than anything else only problem is that those tropes are laid on top of what can only be described as an incredibly confusing cocktail consisting mainly but not entirely of various types/genres/modes/etcetera associated with private eyes (and detectives generally).
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