Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2011

Agent-turned-director Tony Krantz tries to marry film noir (namely Raymond Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely) with pseudo-profound, metaphysical concepts and present it all in a surrealistic neo-Lynchian phantasmagoria. Fails. I like Antonio Banderas, but let’s be honest; even a sexy Spanish voiceover is ill suited to the noir genre, especially with prose this purple. There’s one good albeit totally gratuitous sex scene, but when that’s the best thing in your movie, you know you’re in trouble. Calling this style over substance would be a compliment. If this movie were a painting, it would be on black velvet.