ONCE UPON A TIME IN VENICE – Review

Review by Mark Longden

I genuinely have no idea what to make of ONCE UPON A TIME IN VENICE. Like, why was it made? Who thought “yes, this is definitely the best we can manage” and released it to the public? Just before I looked up the career of co-writer / director Mark Cullen, I had the creeping realisation that this felt like a double episode of a basic-cable light drama show like “Burn Notice”, only not quite as good; it turns out Cullen has previous form in TV, being the creator of two failed shows (“Back In The Game” and “Mr Robinson”), and also the writer of “Cop Out”, the comedy that director Kevin Smith described as the most miserable experience of his life.

But I feel like Mr Cullen shouldn’t get the lion’s share of the blame for this – that must go to top-billed Bruce Willis, who also starred in “Cop Out”, where he regularly ignored his script, direction and co-stars for no reason other than he could. Well, that was a big budget cinema release, and this isn’t, and it’s safe to say Willis had a great deal more say about how this one turned out.

He plays Steve Ford, the only private detective in Venice Beach. Really? No, sorry, can’t get sidetracked this early. The basic plot is sort of about his friend’s dog, which is kidnapped by a drug dealer, and there’s a guy trying to sell an apartment block that a graffiti artist keeps defacing with exceptionally graphic art (the movie’s sole remotely funny running gag), and he’s got a best friend going through a divorce, and an assistant who’s also the movie’s narrator. The dog is the only creature in the movie who appears to be trying. There’s a few scenes with trans sex workers, and in case you were wondering, they’re so dumb that it’s difficult to take offence, or have any other sort of emotion than pity.

How I assume it worked is, Bruce made a few phone calls to his friends and got anyone who had a few days to spare to come along to Venice and shoot a few scenes, leading to an exceptionally baggy movie, one that feels far far longer than its 94 minute running time. He also wanted to have sex with a couple of women young enough to be his granddaughters (Willis is 62, and neither of the women he’s with look older than 25), so that happens as well. Sidetracked again! The drug dealer is Jason Momoa, his best friend is John Goodman, Goodman’s wife is Elizabeth Rohm, the real estate guy (called “Lew The Jew” but it’s cool because he calls himself that) is Adam Goldberg, Kal Penn pops up to play the guy who runs the corner convenience store, Famke Janssen is the dog’s owner and his assistant is played by Thomas Middleditch.

Now, the opening scene might have you believe that Middleditch is the star, and his unnecessary voiceover is our constant companion. His sole purpose, though, is to do the scenes that Willis couldn’t be bothered to, as the two men share almost no screen time and don’t have enough character between them to make two separate people. Their interactions have the strong whiff of improv, too, like Willis couldn’t be bothered to learn his lines, or he knew that Middleditch was an improv guy and wanted to try his hand at it as well (here’s a spoiler: he probably should have just stuck to the script).

If you like seeing movies where old men have sex with young women and fight huge, strong guys, then…I’d still not recommend this. There’s also a scene at the beginning where Willis is naked, on a skateboard (he’s a former skateboard champion as well as being a disgraced cop, two potential plot areas that are completely ignored after the first few scenes) and is chased through the streets. Do you want to know what a completely insulated-from-reality elderly A-lister thinks is funny? You’ll see it here, and you’ll also see the most obvious nudity-double ever, one so obvious that a better movie would have played it for laughs.

It’s nice, I suppose, to see Willis in light-comedy mode, a reminder that there was a good reason he was once one of the biggest stars on the planet. But he seems to be treating his waning years in slightly the same fashion as Marlon Brando or Nicolas Cage – Brando for the doing whatever he liked on set; and Cage for the choices themselves, although admittedly he hasn’t slipped quite as far into straight-to-video obscurity as Cage occasionally has.

Pepper in a few plot holes (if you had an eight-figure real estate deal about to go south thanks to a graffiti artist, would you hire a proper security firm…or the laziest private eye in town?) and you’ve got yourself a movie. Sort of. I kept hoping one of them would step up, but Middleditch looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, Willis looks like he doesn’t care and everyone else looks like they’re not sure what they’re supposed to be doing. There’s a curious mix of low-key improv comedy and slapstick, like they couldn’t decide which to do, and they really don’t go well together, in this instance.