To call Marlowe a wannabe noir film would be to ascribe to it aspirations it doesn’t have. Marlowe isn’t trying to capture a time and place, evoke a particular tone or feel, replicate a form of dialogue, or even basic things like engage you in a mystery or surround you with compelling characters. Marlowe simply wants to be good enough – good enough to pass for the genre in which it’s disguised, good enough to make you think you’ve watched a decent detective story with one of the most famous literary gumshoes of all time. And it isn’t.
As the 1930s wind down, private eye Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is hired by movie star scion Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) to find her missing lover (François Arnaud). The case looks open and shut, but as Marlowe digs deeper, he has to contend...