Cinemazlowski Movie Review: 'Mortdecai'

Jan 24, 2015

Johnny Depp has had a rough time in the last couple of years, with a string of bombs including “The Lone Ranger” and “Transcendence.” Now, he’s returned as yet another in his endless string of oddball characters in “Mortdecai,” an art-heist farce that I’ll admit most critics have derided but which I - and the audience of regular folks that I saw it with - laughed heartily at.

It stars Depp as Charlie Mortdecai, a wealthy yet financially imperiled and shady art dealer who travels the globe selling famous paintings at nonetheless overpriced levels. His tendency to sell paintings that aren’t supposed to be sold - classics that are supposed to be in museums -  for outrageous amounts frequently gets him in trouble and requires him to have an assistant named Jock (Paul Bettany), who is always ready to help Mortdecai fight or shoot his way out of a tense situation with angry customers.

Mortdecai’s other main associate is his wife Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow), who jumps in to save the day when necessary. As the movie opens, the couple are eight million pounds in debt to the British government in back taxes, making them obligated to help out when an old friend of theirs, a secret-police inspector named Martland (Ewan McGregor), shows up and asks them to help track down a painting by the famed artist Goya that’s been stolen and is believed to be also pursued by a Syrian terrorist.

They come to realize that the painting in question has long been rumored to have been in Nazi hands at one point, and that the back of the frame has codes to a bank account worth millions. With numerous private collectors dying to get their hands on the painting - including the terrorist, the MI5 intelligence agency, and assorted other angry past clients who want to make up for Mortdecai’s scheming and rip him off in return - globetrotting comic escapades ensue.

“Mortdecai” has been savaged by most critics as being heavy-handed, but I and the audience I saw it with laughed and chuckled throughout. Depp’s character is an utterly self-absorbed twit who, in a running gag, values his new mustache more than his wife (who hates it and threatens to leave him if he won’t shave it off).

It resembles “Austin Powers” movies, if they were made in the lush visual style of Wes Anderson (of “Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The Royal Tenenbaums”) fame. There are sexual innuendos at a rapid clip throughout the movie, but most of them are still much less crass than those uttered by Mike Myers’ Austin Powers in those films.

In fact, some of the lines are quite brilliant and really quite tame in the scheme of things. However, there is one truly crass line in the movie and the only actual sex shown is a three-second glimpse of a young Johanna on top of Mortdecai in a college dorm room in their pre-marriage days, with it implied that she’s nude but no breasts or other sexual organs are shown.

Mortdecai and Martland were romantic rivals for Johanna in college, until Martland stumbled across Mortdecai and Johanna engaged in their illicit activity. Thus, there is also some teasing between the men, as Martland keeps joking that he’ll step in and replace Mortdecai if she chooses to leave him over the mustache or their poor finances.

Language-wise, there is just one F-word, but an assortment of British bad-slang terms including “bugger,” “bloody,” “bastard,” “balls,” “hell,” and “sod,” plus “bitch” are heard several times throughout. God’s name is heard in vain about 10 times total, in the form of “Jesus,” ”God” and “Christ.” But in an age when R-rated movies are packed wall to wall with F-words, hearing just one here and having British slang replace cruder American terms is much easier on the ears than many other films.

There is plenty of comic action violence throughout, with shootings, bodies found stabbed, a couple of accidental fires and a very funny car chase, but all of it is played at a level that’s cartoonish and which children could easily enjoy if it weren’t for the rating being slapped on for the innuendos. For the record, this movie was rated OK for 6 year olds in Canada and 12 or 13 year olds pretty much everywhere else on the planet. I’m usually fine with accepting American film ratings and never normally say an R-rated film is okay for kids (though “American Sniper” should be seen by most older teens, 15 or 16 and up), but “Mortdecai” really is one that will not harm most kids age 10 or 12 and up and might likely make for a funny family trip to the movies for those with older children and teens.

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