Review: The Cat's Meow (2001)

The Cat's Meow (2001) Review by Greg Louganis.

It's Tom Ince's birthday, and as a special treat, his boss, William Randolph Hearst (or W.R for short) takes Tom and a select choice of friends out on his luxury yacht for a cruise around the west coast of America.

Set in 1924 (and based on a semi-true story), The Cat's Meow is a tale of sex, scandal and debauchery. Though the festivities soon come to a shocking halt as one of the guests is murdered. But who? And how?

Playing as a modern day whodunnit, The Cat's Meow makes a pretty reasonable attempt to make the genre interesting. The casting was fairly promising (Kirsten Dunst as Marion Davies, Eddie Izzard as Charlie Chaplin and Joanna Lumley as Elynor Glin), with everyone making the best of their prospective parts.

The problem with this movie lies in the plot and the pacing. The first half of this movie is a total bore, with only select scenes managing to raise my eyebrows or give off the occassional wry smile. I kept finding myself thinking "when is it going to happen? when will this movie shift in to 2nd gear?". The pacing was not aided by a sparse, and frankly flat soundtrack. To make matters worse the movie was far too long. This is a 112min movie which could have easily been done and dusted in a standard 90min portion.

As for the plot, it's a little thin. It's too promiscuous in being forthcoming with the real plotline and trouble by far too much idle chatter in the first 30mins of this movie. By the time the big moment arrived, things had certainly stepped up a gear and the movie finally looked promising. Unfortunately as soon as said act had been commited, the movie slumped straight in to a deep and condescending lull, never to shift back in to that higher gear.

From there, things were wrapped up far too quickly, almost as if the director & scriptwriter had decided that they couldn't be bothered to shoot the rest of the movie and wanted it all done and dusted in 5mins. And that's exactly what happens. There's no investigation, nothing. Just a simple voice over telling you what happened after the boat trip.

The Cat's Meow had the potential to be a fine movie. Unfortunately, due to the discrepences aforementioned, it quickly becomes obvious to the viewer that this movie as an outright bore with few, if any, highlighting moments. If your a fan of whodunnit movies, you may get something out of it. Otherwise, steer clear. The Cat's Meow truly is the cure for insomnia. Avoid.

Final Rating: 4/10 "Gosford Park minus a budget."

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0266391

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