Poison Rose Film Review

Noir is organic. That is how it was until some Frenchman came along and gave it a label. When you intentionally try for it, it collapses under its own weight. This film tries hard. Too hard. It telegraphs that from the very beginning when the camera pans to a theater marquee with The Maltese Falcon playing. But it is set in 1978 (for no particular reason that I could see). And the marquee is nothing but a faint memory. A PI lives above the marquee looking as bedraggled as the theater with his grizzled slightly moth mangy whiskers, bourbon and Texas twang. He is a gambler and on a losing streak with the collectors looking for him. So, when the femme fatale shows up with a checkbook and low hanging cleavage, he is ready to be plucked. He is soon on a journey to his past. It begins in noir land but moves from L.A. to Galveston. The client hasn't heard from her aunt in months. She is in an institution. The family is worried. All you need to do is go and make sure she is ok. Easy work. But this is noir and noir is never easy.

John Travolta plays Carson, the P.I and he has a fine cast to work with - Morgan Freeman, Brenden Fraser, Famke Janssen, Robert Patrick and Travolta's daughter, Ella Bleu. All the elements are here waiting to be called upon - a town so corrupt even the stray dogs ask for a payoff to pass, the Boss who owns anything worth a spit, the old flame who married well, a sheriff who ignores dead people, a few professional killers, an asylum head who squeaks like a toy duck when pressed. But somehow it never comes together. There is too much going on like the writers were pulling out all the noir they know and piling it up here like an overloaded pick-up truck. One minute it's about the old lady in the institution, then murder, then drugs, then gambling, then oil wells and a town stricken with cancer. The town is the cancer.

Carson was a college football quarterback star in Galveston and was headed for the big time before he took a dive and had to duck out of town leaving behind the woman he loved (Famke). Now he is back thirty years later and still remembered. Doc (Freeman) has his fingers in everything but as he says, there is always more. The head of the asylum Dr. Mitchell (Fraser) keeps him away from the old lady, his old love needs his help, people are trying to kill him. Just another day in noir. Fraser is becoming a hell of a strange actor - his portrayal is all tics and quirks like a half-formed creature out of the mud. The film is narrated by Carson as any authentic noir should be. There just isn't enough juice here. Maybe we have been here too many times before. Probably not a good idea to remind folks of The Maltese Falcon, perhaps the best noir ever made.