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The Singing Detective
starring: Robert Downey Jr., Robin Wright Penn, Mel Gibson, Jeremy Northam, Katie Holmes
directed by: Keith Gordon

Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: Video On Demand
Release Date: May 30, 2008
Running Time: 110 minutes
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: February 15, 2003
Sales Rank: 7422

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- This needs more than one viewing
What can I say? I was a Singing Detective virgin, being ignorant of the British TV show or the story line. I bought it for Robert Downey, Jr. It is weird, disturbing and pulls you in like a moth to a flame. I have watched it several times now, getting a little more understanding every time I do. My favorite scene is the Mr. Sandman number. How funny!

The acting is supurb; why this didn't get any critical acclaim is beyond me. Robert Downey Jr proves, yet again, that professionally no one can touch him. He is a rare class of actor that can deliver any range be it humor or tragedy. This role had to be a challenge though with the total body make up needed for Dan Dark's horrible skin condition; not to mention the emotional roller coaster the character is on. The man appears to cry ... Read More

Rating:

- not good at all
it was all scrated and will never by from them again.

Rating:

- Not the usual Robert Downey, Jr.
I'm a huge Robert Downey, Jr. fan, but this movie did not live up to my expectations. I found it tedious and boring for the most part. I guess every great actor has an occasional bad movie.

Rating:

- Touched by Genius
The film is a strange animal, all right, a work sans genre, and at times Gordon seems to have overreached himself, grasping for effects he isn't quite able to achieve. The various styles, moods, and genres give the film a slightly garish, amateurish feel, yet in the end (perhaps consciously on Gordon's part) this very awkwardness works in the film's favor. The Singing Detective is a remarkably ingenuous work, fresh and daring, almost childlike in its lack of pretension, and easily one of the most original American movies of the last twenty years. Above all, it showcases Robert Downey Jr.'s raging, embittered psoriasis-afflicted pulp writer, inside whose head the whole movie (more or less) takes place, and Downey gives an inventive, powerful performance, what may be the apotheosis of his enormous ... Read More

Rating:

- Seen on its own merits . . .
Few if any reviewers here indicate having watched Keith Gordon's director's commentary on this DVD. I think it would alter some of their judgements. As Gordon explains, the film script was in fact written by Dennis Potter, whose original "Singing Detective" ran as a much longer miniseries on British TV 20 years ago, and the changes to an American setting with 1950s American pop music were really Potter's own ideas. If the transition to feature film format loses something in the translation, it is in part due to his reconceptualization of his original creation.

As the commentary reveals, much of the inventiveness in this new version is not apparent in a single viewing. While it may seem to truncate and over-simplify the lengthier TV version, there is still complexity and ambiguity enough ... Read More

: The Singing Detective