Mortdecai

"Sophistication has a name."

2015 1h 47m EN

😐

5.5

MID

★5.5TMDB · 2,821

ComedyAdventure

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

An art dealer, Charles Mortdecai, searches for a stolen painting rumored to contain a secret code that gains access to hidden Nazi gold.

“Sophistication has a name.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Johnny Depp
Charlie Mortdecai
Gwyneth Paltrow
Johanna Mortdecai
Ewan McGregor
Inspector Alistair Martland
Paul Bettany
Jock Strapp
Jonny Pasvolsky
Emil Strago
Olivia Munn
Georgina Krampf
Jeff Goldblum
Milton Krampf
Michael Culkin
Sir Graham Archer

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: David Koepp
Writers: Eric Aronson, Kyril Bonfiglioli
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Mid-budget at $60M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 79% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 11 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by David Koepp, shot by Florian Hoffmeister. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Geoff Zanelli. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Derek Ambrosi shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Sophistication has a name.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

David Koepp directs. Florian Hoffmeister behind the camera. Geoff Zanelli scores. Derek Ambrosi cuts. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Mid-budget at $60M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.
2Earned back only 79% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
3Released 11 years ago.
4Directed by David Koepp, shot by Florian Hoffmeister. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Geoff Zanelli. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Derek Ambrosi shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Sophistication has a name.".
9IMDB entry: tt3045616 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Cinematography: Florian Hoffmeister
Original score: Geoff Zanelli
Editing: Derek Ambrosi
Production design: James Merifield
Costume design: Ruth Myers
Makeup / hair: Peta Dunstall
Sound: Ron Bochar
Stunt coordinator: G.A. Aguilar
Runtime: 107 min · 1h 47m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $60,000,000
Box office: $47,318,560
Return: 79% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Mortdecai (2015)

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David Koepp

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Filipe Manuel Neto2023-03-06
★ 5/10
A film that is much better than the critics would have said. Unfortunately, it's excessively exaggerated, has a confusing script and excessive sexualized characters and situations. David Koepp must have been very confident about this project. To make this film, he sought out a little-known character from a series of novels by Kyril Bonfiglioli, an author who will only be known by the English or by those who speak English as a native language. I have never found this author's books in Portugal. The film was a huge financial and critical failure, and I was afraid of what I was going to find, but the truth is that I find it mildly satisfactory. The film begins by introducing us, in the voice of the protagonist, to the central characters of the plot: the art dealer Charlie Mortdecai, an aristocratic bon vivant, his beautiful wife and his faithful henchman Jock, tough and excessively virile. From here, we follow the protagonist on an adventure in search of a missing painting that could be a work by Francisco de Goya, with a past associated with the Nazis and believed as lost. This comedy makes a huge effort to be as funny as possible and bets everything on a kind of comedy of exaggerations, in which each character is caricatured and everything is taken to the point of absurdity: Mortdcai, for example, is not just a “marchant d'art”, he's an insolvent aristocrat with tics of grandeur and a fetish for his mustache (okay, I wore a mustache myself, and it was a similar style, but I never let the mustache used me, if you know what I mean). Likewise, Jock is transformed into a mobster and sexual athlete. Exaggeration pays off: it is impossible not to laugh at the absurdity. The most obvious example is the way in which Mortdecai insults the US when he treats it as if it were still an uncivilized British colony. The problem with exaggeration is that it doesn't work if it's overused: the second half is much weaker because we already know what to expect from the characters. I'm even willing to forgive that; harder to forgive is how the script ends up lost in its own twists and turns. Am I the only one who feels that the story is so confusing that even the characters don't know what they need to do? I also can't forgive the amount of sexual jokes. The film had a very restrictive parental rating in the US, but the overwhelming majority of other countries, including Portugal, made the big mistake of giving it a much lower rating, making the film available to a teenage audience. It's not the fault of the producers, it's the authorities of each country, but I wonder if our teenagers, who are starting their sex life earlier and with less awareness, need more sex-promoting stuff. We are no longer in the domain of hedonism, this is perversion. Despite having a string of hits and a solid career, Johnny Depp is not in top form. Having made this film after two other failures, the actor was going through a bad professional phase, which was associated with a controversial marriage (and a divorce, litigious and mediatic, years later). I don't know to what extent his personal life influenced his work, what I can say is that Depp is a shadow of himself. The jokes, the humour, the comic gestures that he masters so well… everything comes out so forced that it's not funny. Paul Bettany, Depp's personal friend and another actor with established credits, is much more effective in the role of Jock. It wasn't the first time that the actor played a tough character, and it seems to me that he has a knack for this type of material. It's nice to see Gwyneth Paltrow here: despite the cold and forced chemistry with Depp, I think the characters asked for it and Paltrow knew how to give her character an additional elegance and charm. Ewan McGregor is welcome support but has little to do. Technically, the film has many qualities, and it is obvious that it had a budget worthy of the cast it had. The cinematography is very good, with excellent colors, lighting and sharpness, and it makes deft and intelligent use of effects and CGI. I particularly liked the effect with the planes and the names of the cities, used whenever the characters had to travel. The filming locations were well chosen and the props and costumes (in particular Depp's and Paltrow's) were very well designed... although I need to consider that the Mortdecai costumes, with excessive use of silks, velvets and strong colors, exude a certain "nouveau riche aroma" that a legitimate blood aristocrat would not fail to condemn. The soundtrack also does its job flawlessly.

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