The Singing Detective (2003) Critic Reviews

The movie does not propose to be a comedy, a musical, a film noir story or a medical account. It proposes to be a subjective view of suffering, and the ways this character tries to cope with it. Understand that, and the pieces fall into place.Read the full review

Works not primarily because it's a strange and original brew, but because it accomplishes its goals without seeming to force things. The blending of reality with dreams, memories, and imagination is done flawlessly.Read the full review

Robert Downey Jr. is great in a role no one less magnetically reckless would dare approach.Read the full review

Potter's genius for wrapping black humor, poignancy and fantasy in utterly original story concepts lends this "Detective" an immediate fascination that doesn't begin wearing off for some time.Read the full review

The question that has to be asked is: Why? The original six-part BBC ''Singing Detective'' remains one of the signal achievements in the history of television -- really -- and its release on DVD this past spring puts it easily within reach of the curious.Read the full review

At once daring and hackneyed, absorbing and off-putting, a triumph of one sort and, more lastingly, a failure of another.Read the full review

Lurches when it should glide, shouts when it should whisper and mumbles when it should sing.Read the full review

Too flat and academic to come alive. The film's lack of dimension tends to render much of it banal, and Downey's lengthy harangues, as beautifully wrought as they are, are overly literary, which serves to make this intricate film seem all the more contrived.Read the full review

Admiring The Singing Detective is easy, and so is appreciating the originality of the story's conceit, the artistry of the actors and the directorial intelligence of Keith Gordon. But loving it would take an act of will.Read the full review