Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: Moderately funny at times.  Has some charm.  Complex plots in a comedy are never a good idea.

And yet another movie that tries to get by on the premise of Johnny Depp playing a quirky fellow.  I assume Depp takes these roles not for the money but for the ability to show us his acting chops.  Though, I’m sure the money doesn’t hurt.  Mix a quirky Depp character with a good script and you are almost guaranteed to have an eventual hit on your hands even if it’s an after the fact cult hit.  Mix a quirky Depp character with a whole cast of quirky characters and a middling story and you get “Mordecai”.

Some of the humor in “Mordecai” hits the mark, but much of it is quite repetitive.  You can only laugh so many times at a man-servant being shot.  It is possible that this humor works better in book form and that pleasure can be derived from seeing the movie after reading the books the movie is based on.  Judging from the two women sitting behind me who thought the movie was hilarious, I can only assume they were book readers because what we were watching was not that funny.

There’s not much to say otherwise.  “Mordecai” tries very hard to be charming, but except for a few brief moments, mostly between Charlie Mordecai (Johnny Depp) and Johanna (Gwenneth Paltrow), it mostly fails.  Like the paintings in this movie, there may be a masterpiece hidden under the surface of this mostly unfunny convoluted plot of a movie, but it would take a master restorer to make a gem of this film.  Look elsewhere for your entertainment.