"Seedy Streets"
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What You Need To Know:
Regrettably, this bittersweet movie contains strong foul language, some brutality and a hero who has corrupted motives and uses shady means to accomplish his goals. Still, while it may lack the purity of the detective movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, the movie’s hardboiled atmosphere retains a certain charm. Furthermore, despite his moral failings, Fritz retains a bit of moral honor. For instance, he does try to protect his client’s sister from the elderly gangster who has a terrible secret he’s keeping from both the girl and her goofy brother, Fat Dog. That, and the bittersweet tone throughout, saves this movie from being a total moral loss, though its worldview is essentially a humanist one containing moral relativism.
Content:
(HH, B, FR, LLL, VV, NN, AA, DD, MM) Humanist worldview of seedy hero with some minor moral elements & man performs a Viking funeral, with a reference to Valhalla; 91 obscenities & 3 mild profanities; gritty detective violence such as two violent shootouts, hero beats taped confession out of one villain, ruffians beat up hero, & gruesome images of corpse; no sex but incest & prostitution mentioned, unmarried couple lives together & man kisses woman in underwear’s back; upper male nudity, brief shots of upper female nudity in photos taped to walls, woman in underwear, & viewers see dancing legs of implied nude dancer; alcohol use, alcoholism & one alcoholic dies offscreen; smoking & reference to minor character’s drug use; and, government corruption, seedy lifestyles, arson, gambling, revenge, & seedy hero uses corrupt means.
More Detail:
HEADLINE: Seedy Streets
TITLE: BROWN’S REQUIEM
Quality: * * * * Acceptability: -3
RATING: Not rated by MPAA
RELEASE: February 2000
TIME: 104 minutes
STARRING: Michael Rooker, Harold Gould, Brad Dourif, William Sasso, Selma Blair, Brion James, & Valerie Perrine
DIRECTOR: Jason Freeland
In classic English mysteries, like the Sherlock Holmes series, the detective often must foil the evil plans of a villain who has disrupted the social order in some way, usually by attacking some member of a good family. In classic American hardboiled mysteries, the social order is itself corrupt and the cynical, but good-hearted, detective tries to protect those who are relatively innocent. In some of the new American hardboiled mysteries, such as those written by James Ellroy, the author of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, even the detective is corrupt. Furthermore, although he may retain some vestiges of morality, the detective must sometimes use corrupt means to protect those who are less guilty.
This is exactly what happens in the low-budget BROWN’S REQUIEM, an adaptation of Ellroy’s first novel. For much of the movie, the detective is after revenge against an evil, corrupt police officer. At one point, he beats up one of the evil cop’s henchmen to gain a confession to protect himself. Then, in order to protect his client’s sister, he tries to assassinate the dirty cop. Finally, his attempt to protect his client’s sister ends in an ironic failure. The result is a bittersweet, semi-tragic ending filled with regret, even though the detective has been well rewarded financially.
Despite its low-budget, BROWN’S REQUIEM is an excellent study of the seedy environment and situations in which the detective, an alcoholic ex-cop named Fritz Brown, finds himself. The hardboiled atmosphere of this genre still retains a certain charm. Furthermore, despite his moral failings, the hero/detective, Fritz, still retains a bit of moral honor. For instance, he promises his client that he will protect the client’s sister from the gangster she’s living with in a rich mansion. That, and the bittersweet tone throughout, saves this movie from being a total moral loss, though its worldview is essentially a humanist one containing moral relativism.
Moviegoers still must wait for the one true filmmaker who can deliver a PG or even a PG-13 detective movie in the tradition of Hollywood films of old. Remember THE MALTESE FALCON or THE BIG SLEEP with Humphrey Bogart? Or, MURDER, MY SWEET with Dick Powell? Or even, BULLITT with Steve McQueen? BROWN’S REQUIEM avoids the explicit sex, nudity and some of the violence of current fare, but it doesn’t forego the strong foul language, moral corruption and brutality that today’s filmmakers crave.
Detective fiction writer Raymond Chandler once waxed poetically about how, “down these mean streets,” a special kind of hero must walk. Well, perhaps filmmaking isn’t a game for such chivalrous knights anymore, but it remains a noble profession. A noble profession that deserves better from its practitioners.
BROWN’S REQUIEM may recall the depths of Chandler’s great ode to the mystery genre, THE LONG GOODBYE, but it lacks its purity. It makes one wonder, however, what would happen if some Christian writers or filmmakers would approach this genre with the clear-eyed vision of God’s spiritual and moral truth? To paraphrase Sam Spade at the end of THE MALTESE FALCON, What kind of stuff would their dreams be made of?
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