Edward Norton, wrote, directed, and acted in the film, “ Motherless Brooklyn.” Photo from ScreenRant.
“Motherless Brooklyn” a period mystery drama based on the novel of the same name, was a passion project of writer, director and star Edward Norton. The film follows a detective’s apprentice named Lionel who begins to investigate corruption in 1950s New York City after the murder of his boss Frank Mina.
The film is an ambitious and slightly interesting period drama with just enough good performances and interesting storylines to make up for its overly-long runtime and inconsistent editing. “Motherless Brooklyn” is full of good performances, a complex story and a few good dialogue sequences that could have really benefited from a shorter runtime. Edward Norton, Gugu Mbatha Raw, Alec Baldwin and Williem Dafoe all give very good performances, especially from Norton as Lionel, a detective suffering from Tourette’s Syndrome.
Even the brief appearances of Bruce Willis and Michael K Williams feel invested and more interesting than some of the film’s duller moments. This film truly works when it is investigating forms of corruption, but falls apart with some of its editing techniques that could connect select scenes quicker and without much explanation while narration explains the rest of the film.
The film’s story of Lionel investigating corruption in 1950s New York while forming a relationship with Mbatha-Raw’s Laura Rose are truly some of the film’s highlights as they are both focused and clever. Some of the film relies heavily on flashback and narration which barely makes a difference in explaining the film’s overly complex plot.
In addition, “Motherless Brooklyn” is a well shot and written film that simply brings in too many characters without a lot of depth until the very end. The subplot involving the fight to keep the slums of New York from being torn down is quite interesting and yet does not find its footing until the film’s midpoint.
“Motherless Brooklyn” moves at a pretty good pace with plenty of twists and good dialogue in its long runtime. None of the characters feel out of place and there is plenty of beautiful New York cinematography throughout. Even the film’s sporadic humor involving Lionel’s quirky behavior does work at certain points within the film’s otherwise dramatic tone. The film’s problem is that it tries to connect too many characters and subplots which make it overly complex and overlong by its effective ending.
“Motherless Brooklyn” does go into some interesting ideas about corruption in politics and detective work that surrounded the 1950s era. The investigation of the central mystery of what did Frank know that someone murdered him as a witness is quite interesting and suspenseful at points. The problem is that the film goes into several predictable twists that anyone who watched the film to that point would have figured out prior to its reveal.
Overall, “Motherless Brooklyn” is an ambitious period drama with good performances, writing and an interesting story that is simply too long and complex to really take advantage of its central mystery and cinematography. For me, “Motherless Brooklyn” gets a six out of 10.