Cinema review ' The Singing Detective' (From Barry And District News)

Cinema review ' The Singing Detective'

Hollywood picks up on what the BBC did very well in 1986 with its hit musical series about a bed-ridden fantasist.

Robert Downey Jr checks into hospital as crime writer Dan Dark, his skin wrecked by psoriasis and filled with flaking, weeping sores. Not since Freddy Krueger has skin been so horrific but captivating.

Drugged up, Dark finds comfort in fantasies and reveries of revenge, flitting around a Walter Mitty-like world of hoodlums and steaming alleys as a singing detective, and bitterly indulging in the imagined betrayal of his estranged wife, played by Robin Wright Penn.

Other figures from Dark's past and present surge forth as his sickened mind roves its own subconscious. Among them are the fine Jeremy Northam and a snappy wise guy duo named First Hood and Second Hood.

This is a brave effort from director Keith Gordon: cramming a seven-hour TV series, brilliantly acted by Michael Gambon, into a film-length piece.

It's tempting to root for a star who has done drugs. Here Downey Jr is back on form, though since he hasn't been in that many truly memorable films, the form is good.

Mel Gibson is endearing as a bug-eyed doctor and his karaoke duo with Downey Jr of Eddie Cochran's Three Steps to Heaven is a great moment. Not even Downey Jr's real-life demons can invigorate what is often a slack, patchy, off-key attempt at Dennis Potter's classic.