Mortdecai

In the final week of 2015, I thought I'd take a look back at some films that seemed to get lost in the shuffle. First up, we travel back to January for the Johnny Depp vehicle Mortdecai.

Depp plays the title character, a bumbling art dealer and con artist who seems to escape every dangerous situation by sheer luck. Armed with a faithful man servent, Paul Bettany, and an outrageous mustache, Mortdecai thinks he's get's by on charm, even though he mostly annoys everyone he comes into contact with.

Up to his eyeballs in debt, Mortdecai recluctantly agrees to help his sworn enemy Inspector Martland, Ewan McGregor, retrieve a stolen Goya painting for a cut of the insurance money. Matters aren't helped that the Inspector has eyes for Mortdecai's wife Johanna, Gwyneth Paltrow. Mortdecai and his servent globetrot around the world in search of the elusive artwork, narrowly escaping one life threatening encounter after the next.

I love when actor's cut loose and don't worry about how foolish they may look. Depp is more than game for this. Channeling Peter Sellers, Depp is at his silliest, and totally makes it work. The rest of the cast is good, but are basically called on to react to Depp's antics.

A lot of my readers, all two of you, know that I'm a big Depp fan and maybe think I'm being a bit lenient to this movie. But I seriously thought it was a lot of fun. It had a British 60's comedy vibe to it, like How To Steal A Million, that really works in it's favor.

Sure to land on most critics worst movies of 2015 lists, I thought Mortdecai was a silly romp. Definately not worthy of the being on a best of list of 2015, but definately an enjoyable time killer.