A Noir Nightmare

hot on the heels of bored to death, hbo's neurotic noir starring jason schwartzman as the least likely of private detectives, comes the missing person, which gets the mood right, but badly miscalculates when it comes to michael shannon's lead performance as detective john rosow.

bereft of any redeeming charm, shannon limps through the movie as if intent on proving that he is an actor: he has a limp; he squints at everyone he encounters; he swirls his lines around in his mouth as if he were at a wine tasting; and most importantly, he smokes and drinks as if it were still the 1940s.

these traits (and his ill-fitting suit) immediately mark him as out of touch with the world, a relic from a time when bacall taught bogie how to whistle. but robert altman got there first with the long goodbye, in which elliott gould's philip marlowe is a rip van winkle-like character who seems at a complete loss in '70s california. and gould had one very important thing going for his performance: likability. shannon is a talented actor, but he's never been likable.

so why has the missing person persisted in staying with me, even though i started craving the big sleep halfway through? part of it is the cinematography, which achieves something close to noir-nightmare. and part of it is the basic plot, in which the detective heads off on a trail job that isn't what it seems, encountering a group of oddball supporting characters along the way (the best of whom are played by amy ryan and margaret colin). those oddballs can get a little too odd, but there's something potent about a classic formula topped off with modern sensibilities when it works well.

still, shannon's detective is so cranky and drunken that it's hard to put our faith in him. he proves himself to be an honest p.i. in a complicated world, but too much of the film is spent wondering about his motives. noir plots should be murky, but the heroes must be morally certain. otherwise, sam spade lives happily ever after with miss wonderly in the maltese falcon and marlowe lets his friend get away with it in the long goodbye. the title may be intended to reference the man rosow is following, but the real missing person in the movie is the detective you respect.

-- the missing person directed by noah buschel at city cinemas village 7, running time 95 min.