If that sounds worthy, well-meaning and incredibly dull, I can only say that Norton makes it work, spinning it into a twisting narrative that, admittedly, does require your concentration.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 26, 2020

The narrative and the characters are so interesting, and the whole theme...so riveting that Norton's immensely ambitious film succeeds as a compelling exercise in neo-film noir.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2020

Motherless Brooklyn is a love-letter to the long-held focus across film noir on masculinity in crisis, but through Lethem's source material and Norton's deep engagement with it, something genuinely fresh explodes out of seemingly familiar material.

| Dec 10, 2019

My only criticism is that it does take its time, because it's not afraid to indulge in its story...but those moment are far fewer than I thought, and the story is not hard to follow.

| Dec 10, 2019

The rest is a sluggish film noir pastiche (the setting of the novel has been inexplicably shifted from the late Nineties to the Fifties) that aims to emulate the jazzy intrigue of Chinatown, but delivers only clichés and screen-chewing vanity.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 9, 2019

There's something showy and calculated about the whole thing. Still, it's worth watching...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 8, 2019

As it is, his passionate commitment to the story has resulted in the very definition of a vanity project.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 7, 2019

I loved its imperfections almost as much as its beautifully stripped down and ramshackle quality.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2019

Its homage to film noir is over-the-top and borderline parodic -- at times, it's more Who Framed Roger Rabbit? than Chinatown.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 6, 2019

It took Norton two decades to get Motherless Brooklyn made, and the result is a film that's wondrously out of time: one in which the hero isn't out to save the world, just understand it.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 5, 2019

A bloated, 145-minute crime flick with a gimmicky protagonist investigating a cliché-prone murder-and-corruption plot.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 4, 2019

There's quite a bit to admire in Motherless Brooklyn, but mostly in detail work - the hats, the cars, the join-the-dots conspiracy theory - but it doesn't really catch fire as either a private-eye mystery or a study in Tourette syndrome savantry.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2019

Fascinating though it is to see Norton continue Caro's work in scrutinising the legacy of one of Gotham's most influential and controversial figures, Norton's anti-capitalist message is undermined by his film's sentimental tendencies.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 2, 2019

Motherless Brooklyn is not just nostalgic for the New York City it recreates, but fixated on the moment of its loss. Notes from Chinatown swirl like a saxophone solo as the birth of the city of the future and ponders the mystery of its parentage.

| Nov 19, 2019

I'm sure that the actor and director Edward Norton is often the smartest person in the room. But thinking one is the smartest person in the room can be a bad idea.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 3, 2019

"Motherless Brooklyn" wants to be taken seriously, but it's like a tip written on a matchbook that's been smudged out by the rain. It leads nowhere.

| Original Score: C | Nov 3, 2019

Motherless Brooklyn is so messy, confusing and pointless that you don't know what's going on half the time, and couldn't care less.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 3, 2019

...an effective mood piece and a worthy entry in the genre.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 2, 2019

Motherless Brooklyn [is] a noble failure, but a failure nonetheless.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 2, 2019

It's got giant scope, but it is so slow. It is a real slog to sit through... Also, Norton's performance is really mannered and over the top.

| Nov 1, 2019