The Gingerbread Man (1998)

Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man isn't the director's best, but it's worth a looky-loo just to see this solid cast cavort around in a sweltering Georgia atmosphere and play out a narrative that's part sultry seduction thriller and part hard boiled whodunit. I remember watching it and going 'meh, I've seen this type of thing a thousand times and this one didn't raise the bar at all.' I'm thinking now that perhaps my mindset was in the wrong space, and that Altman set out to simply bring us the romantic murder mystery in its purest form, without deviation or higher ambitions. In that case he's made a neat little potboiler with a suitably ludicrous ending, some truly effective red herrings and a really great troupe of actors, so,e going nicely against type. The multi-talented Kenneth Branagh plays suave Georgia lawyer Rick MacGruder, who finds himself in deep trouble when he has an affair with sexy, slinky and shady Mallory Doss (the very underrated Embeth Davidz). She's a good enough girl, but she has a backwoods nutcase of a father named Dixon (Robert Duvall being uber strange and loving every second of it) who is stalking and threatening her. Dixon is a bedraggled, cult-leading swamp rat and Duvall plays him to the frenzied hilt of uncomfortable ticks and unkempt theatrics. MacGruder, being smitten with Mallory, is of course compelled to use his legal and personal power to help her, and concocts a convoluted scheme involving a subpoena to Mallory's belligerent ex husband Pete Randle (a cranky Tom Berenger blusters about in the third act). This of course sets off all kinds of back door motivations and sweaty double crosses that are hard to keep track of until all is revealed in the final act, prompting a collective audience reaction of "huh??". It's all in good fun though and at times it seems like Altman is deliberately dipping into B movie territory just to shirk his high art mantle and spice up this gumbo with some trashy, lowbrow flavour. I say bring it, that's exactly the way to my heart. Writing this review I'm now realizing I probably like this film way more than my ending statement might suggest, but sometimes we need to hash it all out on paper (or in this case a cramped iPad keyboard) to reevaluate our perception of a certain piece. The cast gets juicier, with Robert Downey Jr. doing a quick bit as Macgruder's slick buddy who works as a private investigator for the law office, Daryl Hannah and Famke Janssen as Rick's jilted wife as well. It's based on a John Grisham novel, and Altman seems to be the first director to adapt his work with a ramped up style and personal flair that goes beyond the academic thrills on the page. This one feels heightened, sultry and oh so sweaty in the way that only a southern set thriller can be. Cool stuff.

This is sort of 'Short Cuts' correlative opposite. That was a movie with great ambitions, that – while good – fell just short. This is a movie of much lesser aim (just a good tense thriller/mystery), that's much more successful on it's own terms. The acting is very good throughout. It may be my favorite Kenneth Branagh performance; understated and subtle. And a number of the scenes really are tense. Altman finds some clever ways to create suspense with sound and image that aren't just retreads of what we've seen before. Admittedly, some of the twists are pretty creaky and predictable, the logic sometimes questionable, and the moral POV of the film is a bit confusing. But this still blows most modern Hollywood thrillers out of the water.

Awful, customary, idiot, and the P word, which this movie deserves it better.. pre.. yes, you know it.. predictable. These are the very words I've found on my lips right after the end of this.. well.. awful, customary, idiot, and predictable movie.It's a noir story that I've seen hundreds of times before. Sure (Robert Altman) knew that by heart, so what exactly did he think of to make it kind of new or even solid : falling in love with the red color, directing the whole thing truly poorly (like the worst Woody Allen's movie), and leading good special effects concerning a hurricane. That was it if you're looking for more ! Some scenes looked really tepid while they were supposed to be thrilling, where the camera was immovable and the rhythm screaming : I'm boring ! (Like when Branagh was going in his girlfriend's apartment looking for anybody in it near the end). And some of the moments seemed so cheesy (Branagh hands in the gun to his girlfriend to discover that he emptied it from bullets earlier.. Old stuff in a movie lacks any new ones !).I've got more points that force me to explode : (Kenneth Branagh)'s charisma got something wrong, being uninteresting or weak or both ! (Robert Duvall) looks dim without anything high to offer (just like the whole movie !). And (Embeth Davidtz) is no sexy, charming nor beautiful in the first place to seduce anyone, you'll have every single man in the movie fascinating about her legs which are pathetic to begin with (ideally ugly is the word !).I can't say that there were plot holes, but there was intentional dealing with us as assholes ! For one example : how the competent wise old-time attorney ever believed for a second that (Duvall)'s shoeless character or any of his imbecile hillbilly companions got the advanced technology to track down his cell phone ?!! How can he be that fool ! It's this script which dealt with him, so us, the same shameful way !The movie gives us little but clear suspicions about something between the girl and the detective, to make its so-called twist at the end where we discover that the husband is the other part of the scheme not the detective. Basically all of that is based on the fact that the whole thing was uncovered from the beginning as the girl is a deceiver with associate of some kind. So the movie nearly exposed its own deception, hence deprived itself of its main surprise, but with a twist in the last 2 minutes : How Smart ! In fact with obvious gestures like : Embeth Davidtz's character looks directly to Branagh at the start's party, leading him so easily to her apartment, presenting nothing about the father's intention, let alone portraying him as helpless feeble-minded, over and above a hint story about the fox that ate the gingerbread man/the attorney.. It became so easy to figure out everything and from the very start of it. This movie simply had eaten its power to be a little foxy. As if it ate the fox in the story, and too early as well.I don't know why (Altman) did it originally. But for money or art, both ways it sucks. Naturally it's not for the genre's fans, maybe for the genre's haters to hate it more, I know I hated myself when I watched it in complete !One last remark, what about the woman who was taking photos for the lead's kids at the park ?! I thought that could've been his ex-wife as a part of the whole scheme ?! Actually what a shocking twist it could've been if she turned out to be his devoted assistant (Darryl Hannah) ! But this movie, as you see, doesn't want anything but being awful, customary, idiot and predictable one...Can I add silly too ?!

Robert Altman shouldn't make a movie like this, but the fact that he did- and that it turns out to be a reasonably good and tightly-wound thriller in that paperback-tradition of Grisham thrillers- shows a versatility that is commendable. In the Gingerbread Man he actually has to work with something that, unfortunately, he isn't always very successful at, or at least it's not the first thing on his checklist as director: plot. There's one of those big, juicy almost pot-boiler plots where a sleazy lawyer gets caught up with a desperate low-class woman and then a nefarious figure whom the woman is related with enters their lives in the most staggering ways, twists and plot ensues, yada yada. And it's surprising that Altman would really want to take on one of these "I saw that coming from back there!" endings, or just a such a semi-conventional thriller.But it's a surprise that pays off because, oddly enough, Altman is able to catch some of that very fine behavior, or rather is able to unintentionally coax it out of a very well-cast ensemble, of a small-town Georgian environment. The film drips with atmosphere (if not total superlative craftsmanship, sometimes it's good and sometimes just decent for Altman), as Savannah is possibly going to be hit by a big hurricane and the swamp and marshes and rain keep things soaked and muggy and humid. So the atmosphere is really potent, but so are performances from (sometimes) hysterical Kenneth Branaugh, Embeth Davitz as the 'woman' who lawyer Branaugh gets caught up with, and Robert Downey Jr (when is he *not* good?) as the private detective in Branaugh's employ. Did I neglect Robert Duvall, who in just five minutes of screen time makes such an indelible impression to hang the bad-vibes of the picture on? As said, some of the plot is a little weak, or just kind of standard (lawyer is divorced, bitter custody battle looms, innocent and goofy kids), but at the same time I think Altman saw something captivating in the material, something darker than some of the other Grisham works that has this standing out somehow. If it's not entirely masterful, it still works on its limited terms as a what-will-happen-next mystery-Southern-noir.