The Private Eye

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The Private Eye

The Private Eye is an independent film produced by Illusion Islands, Ayiyi Productions and Frame 12 Productions, which attempts a parody of traditional noir movies and detective features. The film’s main characters are a stand up comedian Matt Rife playing Private Eye, Clare Grant of Changeland and Walk The Line and Denzel Whitaker, cop-turned-actor famous for The Great Debaters, Training Day and the blockbuster Black Panther. The Private Eye is the first film Jack Cook directed in his career, but it was co-written by him, Hope Ayiyi as well as Rosalinda Books.

As a former PI, Mort Madison is now rather washed up and earns what little respect he still has by organizing stakes. His moment of glory came when he managed to bring a bust to an entire gang nicking DVDs across America. With no work and nothing but alcohol and cigarettes to pay for his noir-style, times are hard. But then out of nowhere, the work lands right in Madison’s lap. A woman named Michelle employs him for a case that leads Mort down memory lane but even further into his own twisted psyche.

There are disjointed bits of The Private Eye’s screenplay that are productive, and there are super tired Noir flavors that alas, this picture ever so manages to pull off. The conversations often possess a level of over-dramatization and hilarity that most of the acts don’t seem to convey. Most of the script’s heightened and stylized words were delivered in the most straightforward manner which was ironic. First, the voice-over narration is memorable and wordy. It is very dramatic in its delivery and so often serves to inject that kind of attitude back into the more subdued areas of the movie that might be overshadowed by this Film Noir essence. Comedy does present an innate challenge to The Private Eye, however, its jokes tend to be somewhat obscure. In actuality, many of the most amusing scenes do not even resemble a joke, simply a lapse in the whole idea of humor. Your right, however, Mort’s detached bemusement of the things taking places around him is just full of flat humour and also every sequence where David the therapist appears will always have a comedic twist.

In spite of the subtitle, The Private Eye, One would be surprised to know that this is actually a detective movie since it has very little elements about a detective or his engagements. The only individual genuinely conducting any detective work is Mort who goes around groping the women surrounding him tipping over into somewhat misogynistic acts. Throughout the film The Private Eye as a character and his on and off privileged status of women is comically depicted by Michelle who acts out the Madonna-whore dichotomy. What critiques The Private Eye positively is its own internal imprudence, for such distinct gaucheness works as a socialist critic, but most of the time it just impersonates the genres cliches in a state of grossly uncritical impersonation. The picture does have a story but it is lacking in plot twists that should define a film noir picture, resulting in disorganization especially in the first half, with slight integration between the disparate parts that come in succession. At times, this enables the movie to be surreal and strange in a good way that echoes the perspective of The Private Eye, but most of the time is just feels rambling.

The Private Eye does a wonderful job at employing the unreliable narrator, where the psychosexual drama is present from the beginning but rather underneath the surface. The audience is well aware of the turn of events before it happens as the evidence becomes heavier the more the movie goes on. The audience knows the twist so well due to heavy hints given in the earlier scenes of the movie like it was bound to have happened anyway rather than been a twist, raising the curiosity in how it still will be shocking. However, the depiction of the twist within the plot is presented in a very dull manner, where the final twists of The Private Eye leaves a sense of disappointment and life is sucked out of the story’s last segments. The final long speech by Mort, as the narrator is a bit too tedious with the story and the message it creates, where the audience once again sees this great but by now unappreciated idea.

The Private Eye’s performances barely pull through as surreal and parodic as the storyline neither offers nor provides the stylization of a tribute to detectives wannabe. Even smaller parts seem to be struggling in one or the other way while rendering their moments, which does not assist the immersion. Matt Rife as Mort is said to have delivered a ‘captivatingly’ intended performance, being very disillusioned with the profession of a private eye who sees every thing through a comic book’s world. His performance oscillating between disinterest and airs of superiority, however, summed up the inherent conflicts of this man who possesses neither dignity nor shame and yet has an overinflated self-regard. As Michelle, Clare Grant seems very engaging, first seeming to embody all the traits of the typical Femme Fatale only to chaos when she turns out to be sultry, proud, scornful, maternal and forever elusive, subject to change as she would like. A difficult performance, Grant manages to deliver with compelling aplomb, not the operatic breadth to allow her character seem like a genuine critique of a stock character. The chemistry and the relationship between Michelle and Mort which are supposed to be the romantic focal point of The Private Eye seems artificial and does not convincingly develop from that point.

ELLIOT brings David, one of Michelle\’s sexing therapist, to life with his twitchy nervous persona and forty degrees of hippy personas. The scene which features Elijah Boothe Dee and Jared Brady Kaleb is so much fun with Boothe providing the best comedic interpretation. Denzel Whitaker, in the role of Bradley, writes faithful stories in the plot, but touches the audience only with his infrequent appearances. Erik Griffin again shines as Crazy Carl, a cab driver, wannabe criminal, and great comic relief. But still, none of the script-focused segments of The Private Eye really work the story tension with a few exceptions of Bradley and Mort’s final extended interaction in the second part of the picture.

The Private Eye possesses, from a directorial perspective, a few minimal continuity blunders which are often the trademark of low budget films such as seeing crew members on reflective objects in the background, occasional misplaced eyelines supposedly following characters who have exited the frame, breaches of the 180-degree rule resulting in the disorientation of the geography of the scene, and even the shifting of costume arrangements during certain sequences. All of these mistakes are easily excused. These flaws add to the appeal of The Private Eye as an indie movie which still has plenty of duct tape everywhere.

As we watch the movie, we often notice the quick transition from color to black and white in addition to a more squished aspect ratio. There is a stark contrast between the life Mort leads, and the imaginary adventures he goes on. This is such a great creative decision, as it gives The Private Eye the opportunity to pay tribute to the works that served as its foundations. Sadly, apart from the very first few moments of the movie, this visual device exists to lesser and lower extent until there is hardly any by the ending. This is quite regrettable.

The Private Eye, cinematography by Rapha Bola, features fine cinematography, which has very good tracking angles and some interesting compositional top-down perspectives but otherwise is rather dull with shot angles and compositions being mostly medium and over-the-shoulder shots. The wides are well established later in the story but the early ones, set in black and white don’t seem to work and are rather disturbing than adding to the effect of the movie. There is some level of bad framing here and there, but this only seems to be a problem in the more intimate scenes and instead makes the camera feel like a ‘peep’ shot and not in an intentionally clever way.

From the views of the cut and editing of the scenes, First off, Private Eye is a bit of a disappointment considering the expectations set by the initial 60 minutes of the film. Alright, The Private Eye’s pretend short film is really closer to an unfinished edit of a much smarter, funnier, 90 minute film. This could be perfectly acceptable, except it happens to nearly every event of the shot or sequence that there is an over publishing of it and it has a detrimental effect while also attempting to create tension at any point during the film. A good example here is the timelapse of Mort cleaning his wreck of an apartment. For a sequence that is interesting it slowly becomes dull over time. There’s also an awful looking A.I. made option at the end of the credits.

The Private Eye fails to provide sufficient production design, and the set dressing tends to be quite uninspired. Most of the time not crafted with any notable visual language or appeal, set pieces of the film tend to not be too dramatic or realistic. There is a complete unexplainable and tragic absence in a film which seeks to be consistently visually multilayered and rich with classic detail in taste and style. Even without this, the production design is just not very good in the degree of how realistic the designs should be, with most locations designed in a very orthodox manner that suggests lack of realism or creativity. For the time it lasts The Private Eye, such a pity, is not generously illuminated by appealing lighting which contributes to making the film slightly less mediocre. The sound is crisp and very clear, only slightly tainted by the intrusive music embedded within the story as well as the voice-over on occasion overpowering the music and making it feel disconcerting.

The Private Eye does not demonstrate a solid style of clothing lines collectively with some exceptions: notably Mort’s suspendered suit and jacket, and David’s colorful hippie-themed clothes. These provide some opportunity for one’s characterization to be more focused in appearance. The make-up and hair, however, are nearly always very good, particularly in the case of close up shots on Mort’s face, where considerable effort is put into depicting how raggedy his life is.

Although The Private Eye touches on the horror or crime of Film Noir, it does not make any effort to stylize its scenes through cinematography, or production design, or on the level of the cast’s performances enough to pass as a satirical film of any sort. The Private Eye would have also been a far superior film than it is if it was abbreviated still more than it is. With better cuts and a shorter length of films, many of the film’s parts would be more interesting and more fleshed out. Despite the strong trailer, this film is still rough around the edges in many places. It is regrettable since the idea is exceptionally good.

In the end, The Private Eye comes out as an anti-comedy of psycho-sexual romance one might expect in a love film that parodies a detective tale and slaps on film noir at the same time, all of which for a baffling mix of styles and conceits instead of a cohesive mockery or a deconstruction of detective fiction like most of the other texts I have seen.

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