The Gingerbread Man

Anyone who is attracted to The Gingerbread Man because it is directed by Robert Altman will be sorely disappointed as there is no evidence of his signature style. Knowing that he is the director one can identify the occasional characteristic touch here and there, such as his symbolic use of the colour red, but for the most part this neo-noir thriller could have been helmed by any competent Hollywood director.

There’s an excellent cast including Kenneth Branagh, Robert Duvall, Robert Downey Jr and a nearly unrecognisable Darryl Hannah but the plot, adapted from a John Grisham novel is both so entirely routine and completely improbable as to offer little to any audience familiar with the genre, particularly as Altman pretty much signals its outcome from the get-go by over playing Embeth Davidtz's character..

Branagh, plays Rick Magruder, a divorced hot-shot South Carolina defense attorney who gets involved with a piece of white trash (Davidtz), and eventually her sociopathic father, (Robert Duvall. in a stand-out performance). Letting his little head do his thinking he decides to help her out despite the warnings of his colleagues (Hannah and Downey Jr) and before long his whole world is turned upside down while Hurricane Geraldo beats its path to Savannah.

The film starts well enough with strong characters and plenty of tension, added to nicely by the approaching hurricane with its torrential rain and Mark Isham’s atmospheric score, and the film sustains this quality for the most part but in the latter half hour it loses all individuality with a typical mid-range thriller approach falling back on a series of highly improbable plot twists and illogicalities to get the story to its final destination. In doing so it undoes the good will it has earned, leaving us as an audience feeling rather cheated.

Available from: Shock Entertainment

 

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