Honestly, if you were to take a shot each time Eliot Gould lights up or says "it's okay with me," you'll be hammered in the first 10 minutes.
On a more serious note, this movie's got it all: a comedically apathetic and disoriented lead, dark comedy, and brilliant acting, particularly from Gould, Hayden, and Rydell. Gould plays the aforementioned comic lead and smoker, Private Investigator Phillip Marlowe, who spends the first 10 minutes stumbling around his apartment and muttering to himself, which immediately got me into the movie. Thank God this movie remains relatively unseen and Marlowe's not an anti-hero, lest he become part of the "Literally Me"/Sigma Male collection. As the noir gets going, Gould's performance is what drives the whole thing forward, I took joy in watch his odyssey spanning from gangster dens to Mexican beaches and interact with the bizarre occupants of these settings with snarky remarks.
Among these are Hayden and Rydell. Rydell's Marty Augustine is like if Tommy DeVito's "funny like a clown?" routine were taken to an extreme, as Rydell's aggressive coked out gangster continuously tries to intimidate the P. I. and only receives Marlowe's trademark sass in response. Marlowe's sarcasm remains a constant, but here results in the most shocking scene of the film, Augustine nonchalantly disfiguring his own girlfriend with a coke bottle. Playing a self destructive and alcoholic Hemingway knockoff, Hayden's dialogue perfectly captures the poetry of a drunk, fitting as Hayden himself improvised all his lines drunk and stoned. In much of their scenes together, Marlowe's bizarre sense of humor dissipates as he seems to pity the man he believed framed his friend for murder.
Ultimately, as the noir plot unravels more and more, Gould's Marlowe and the friends he makes along the way, or perhaps loses along the way, weave together a perfect satirical mystery.
On a more serious note, this movie's got it all: a comedically apathetic and disoriented lead, dark comedy, and brilliant acting, particularly from Gould, Hayden, and Rydell. Gould plays the aforementioned comic lead and smoker, Private Investigator Phillip Marlowe, who spends the first 10 minutes stumbling around his apartment and muttering to himself, which immediately got me into the movie. Thank God this movie remains relatively unseen and Marlowe's not an anti-hero, lest he become part of the "Literally Me"/Sigma Male collection. As the noir gets going, Gould's performance is what drives the whole thing forward, I took joy in watch his odyssey spanning from gangster dens to Mexican beaches and interact with the bizarre occupants of these settings with snarky remarks.
Among these are Hayden and Rydell. Rydell's Marty Augustine is like if Tommy DeVito's "funny like a clown?" routine were taken to an extreme, as Rydell's aggressive coked out gangster continuously tries to intimidate the P. I. and only receives Marlowe's trademark sass in response. Marlowe's sarcasm remains a constant, but here results in the most shocking scene of the film, Augustine nonchalantly disfiguring his own girlfriend with a coke bottle. Playing a self destructive and alcoholic Hemingway knockoff, Hayden's dialogue perfectly captures the poetry of a drunk, fitting as Hayden himself improvised all his lines drunk and stoned. In much of their scenes together, Marlowe's bizarre sense of humor dissipates as he seems to pity the man he believed framed his friend for murder.
Ultimately, as the noir plot unravels more and more, Gould's Marlowe and the friends he makes along the way, or perhaps loses along the way, weave together a perfect satirical mystery.