Film
Motherless Brooklyn
- Director
- Edward Norton
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 144 mins
A Chinatown-style noir-ish period crime thriller with a Tourette’s twist? You got it. Written, directed and produced by Ed Norton, who also takes the lead role, this long-gestating, labour-of-love adaptation of Jonathan Letham‘s novel takes certain liberties with its source but has been warmly received.
It’s 1957 and low-rent New York gumshoe Lionel Essrog (Norton) tends to be underestimated because of his Tourette’s (“It makes me say funny things, but I’m not trying to be funny,” he explains), which distracts from an obsessive eye for detail and a photographic memory. These qualities come in handy when he embarks on an investigation into the murder of his mentor (Bruce Willis). Expect snappy dialogue, sumptuous period detail and shoals of red herring.
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