The Detective [M]

When the son of a politically influential man is brutally murdered, thick-skinned detective Joe Leland is assigned to the case. With the deceased being a homosexual Leland’s got his hands full trying to convince the rest of the force to see past that singular fact, but the case takes another turn when the deceased’s roommate proves difficult to track down. Once the roommate is found and confesses, he’s put to the chair and Leland moves onto the next case: a suicide. But as new evidence comes to light, a shocking link between the two cases is discovered. 

As much as I love detective stories, thrillers, and Frank Sinatra, I’m not completely sold on this movie. Based on the book by Roderick Thorp, there are a lot of intertwining stories going on, the entire premise and setting is very bleak and nasty, and it’s very easy to become confused and a little frustrated halfway through. I don’t want to say that it’s a bad movie because it isn’t: it’s original, intriguing, and tugs at a lot of emotional strings. I just think that it could have been done a little bit better. 

When the son of a politically influential man is brutally murdered, thick-skinned detective Joe Leland is assigned to the case. With the deceased being a homosexual Leland’s got his hands full trying to convince the rest of the force to see past that singular fact, but the case takes another turn when the deceased’s roommate proves difficult to track down. Once the roommate is found and confesses, he’s put to the chair and Leland moves onto the next case: a suicide. But as new evidence comes to light, a shocking link between the two cases is discovered. 

There was a strong feeling of uncertainty in this movie. You could feel it in everything from the writing, to the editing, to the filming techniques, to the performances and their direction. Firstly, there are up to I think around four stories running parallel with one another and occasionally intertwining. We’ve got the central story of the murder case, which grabs your attention right away when Sinatra comes in and says the words “penis cut off”. This one’s pretty straightforward and sits soundly as a base building block. 

The next story we’re introduced to is the romance between Joe and his wife Karen. Theirs is a story of struggle, neglect, promiscuity, and a lack of understanding and feeling. We are first introduced to this story through extreme close ups of the eyes and then a hazy fade into memory and this happens twice throughout the film. This is where a certain level of uncertainty comes into the mix in terms of editing because, although the way flashbacks are portrayed was quite good, there never really felt like a right time to show them. It felt as though they were inserted a) to establish Karen’s character and possibly even further provide insight into Joes, and b) to pad out the movie. 

The third story that we have chiefly concerns our protagonist and his past. Joe’s tale is one of duty, loyalty, self-worth, and guilt and this story gains greater salt as the movie goes on. And then we have the fourth and final story of the suicide and the suspected conspiracy behind it. This is another example of a detective biting off more than he can chew in trying to uncover the truth and it’s one of the few tales that doesn’t feature any real closure, but leaves the door open ajar after its left the room. 

Frank Sinatra is detective Joe Leland and his performance is intriguing for a number of reasons: the main being that you can never read him or hazard a guess as to what’s going on behind his face. On the one hand I want to applaud him because his character is one that seemingly struggles with a lot of internal battles and retaining that unreadable composure requires skill. On the other hand, Sinatra already mastered the art of remaining unreadable to greater effect in Suddenly and having this sort of composure as the good guy just creates further uncertainty for me as well as giving me the feeling that he just swanned through the film. You couldn’t hate him or root for him, you couldn’t connect with this character at all and I think that’s what really let this movie down. You couldn’t actually connect to, be attracted to, or repelled by any of the characters. Uncertainty. 

Starring Lee Remick, Ralph Meeker, Jack Klugman, Horace McMahon, Lloyd Bochner, William Windom, Tony Musante, Al Freeman Jr., Robert Duvall, Pat Henry, Patrick McVey, Dixie Marquis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Renee Taylor, James Inman, Tom Atkins, and Jacqueline Bisset, The Detective is a potentially thrilling and good movie, but the uncertainty in its direction and editing I think let it down. Filled with murder, suspense, drama, guilt, and romance, it was all right, but didn’t really make the mark.