''Mortdecai'' is a 2015 American
action comedy film
Action comedy is a genre that combines aspects of action and comedy. The genre is most prevalent in film with action comedy films, though several TV series fit this genre.
Film
The action comedy film is a film genre that combines aspects of acti ...
directed by
David Koepp
David Koepp (; born June 9, 1963) is an American filmmaker. Koepp is the ninth most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of U.S. box office receipts with a total gross of over $2.3 billion.
Koepp has achieved both critical and commercial ...
and written by Eric Aronson. The film is adapted from the novel series ''
Mortdecai'' (specifically its 1972 first installment ''Don't Point that Thing at Me'') written by
Kyril Bonfiglioli. It stars
Johnny Depp in the title role and also features
Gwyneth Paltrow,
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor ( ; born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British ...
,
Olivia Munn
Lisa Olivia Munn (born July 3, 1980) is an American actress and former television host. After an internship at a news station in Tulsa, she moved to Los Angeles where she began her professional career as a television host for the gaming netwo ...
,
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany (born 27 May 1971) is an English actor. He is mostly known for his roles as J.A.R.V.I.S. and Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, recently starring in the Disney+ miniseries '' WandaVision'' (2021), for which he was nominate ...
and
Jeff Goldblum
Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum (; born October 22, 1952) is an American actor and musician. He has starred in some of the highest-grossing films of his era, such as ''Jurassic Park'' (1993) and ''Independence Day'' (1996), as well as their sequels.
...
. Released by
Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered ...
on January 23, 2015, ''Mortdecai'' was a
box office bomb
A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...
, grossing $47 million against its estimated $60 million budget, and was critically panned.
Plot
Lord Charlie Mortdecai, an 'art dealer' and swindler, is accosted in Hong Kong by one of his victims, a gangster named Fang. Jock, Mortdecai's faithful manservant, extricates his master before they can be killed.
Returning to London, Mortdecai and his wife, Johanna, consider ways to pay off their crushing tax debt. At the same time in Oxford, a painting by
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...
becomes the target of an elaborate theft, resulting in the murder of an art restorer. Inspector Alistair Martland is put on the case. He, in love with Johanna since college, puts pressure on Mortdecai to assist him. Martland believes the prime suspect to be Emil Strago. Mortdecai agrees to help in exchange for 10% of the insurance money.
Mortdecai interviews people affiliated with the art world, including Spinoza, an art smuggler. While they argue, Strago arrives and shoots at them, killing Spinoza; Mortdecai escapes unharmed, although he accidentally shoots Jock in the process. Johanna meets with 'The Duke', who knows the thief and says that the painting conceals the location of a hoard of Nazi gold. Mortdecai is kidnapped by thugs working for a Russian named Romanov because they think that Mortdecai has the painting. Romanov threatens torture unless Mortdecai surrenders it, but he escapes through a window with Jock.
Martland sends Mortdecai to America to meet with potential Goya buyer Milton Krampf. Planning to sell his beloved
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to:
* Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct
Automobiles
* Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...
to the American, he tries to see if Krampf is involved with the theft. After Mortdecai arrives in Los Angeles, Krampf shows him that the Goya was smuggled into the US in the Rolls after it had been stolen from Strago and stashed there.
Krampf invites Mortdecai to the party, where he will show the Goya. Jock and Mortdecai try to steal it during the party, as do Krampf's daughter Georgina and Strago. She attempts to seduce Mortdecai while Strago steals the painting. Johanna arrives with Martland and catches her husband with Georgina. Mortdecai flees to help Jock steal the painting, but finds Krampf has been murdered by Strago and the painting is gone. Strago is caught, but Georgina helps him escape with the painting. Mortdecai, Jock, Martland and Johanna find them in a motel where Martland sets fire to the Goya, causing the building to explode. It is revealed that the painting was a fake; The Duke has hidden the real one.
The Mortdecais retrieve the painting, putting it up for auction. The sale attracts Fang and Romanov, whose thugs Mortdecai and Jock waylay. In the auction room, Strago attempts to kidnap Johanna while Mortdecai bids up the 'Goya'. Sir Graham eventually wins it for Romanov and Martland apprehends Strago during the commotion. Sale proceeds pay off their debt, but they are still broke.
The painting is revealed to be another fake, and Romanov plots his revenge whilst his thugs begin to torture Sir Graham.
In the closing scene, the Mortdecais share a bubble bath while admiring the real Goya.
Cast
Production
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...
and production began in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
on October 21, 2013.
Parts of the film were shot on location at
Hedsor House
Hedsor House is an Italianate-style mansion in the United Kingdom, located in Hedsor in Buckinghamshire. Perched overlooking the River Thames, a manor house at Hedsor can be dated back to 1166 when the estate was owned by the de Hedsor Family. ...
in
Buckinghamshire in the UK,
where Depp, Munn, and Bettany filmed scenes in Hedsor House's Boudoir and Bridal Suites.
Scenes were also shot on location at the
National Art Library in the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
in London.
The Goya painting is a
pastiche or modern version of the 1805 ''
Portrait of the Marchioness of Santa Cruz'' (Madrid,
Prado Museum
The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...
).
Release
On April 23, 2014,
Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered ...
announced that the film would be released on February 6, 2015. On September 24, 2014, the release date was shifted to January 23, 2015.
Marketing and promotion
A photo from the film featuring Depp was revealed on May 8, 2014. Four character posters - featuring Depp, Paltrow, McGregor, and Munn with mustaches - were released in November 2014. A promotional tie-in for the film was done by
The Art of Shaving
The Art of Shaving is a United States retail business of high-end men's shaving and skin care accessories. The first store was founded by Eric Malka and Myriam Zaoui in Manhattan in 1996.
The store was successful and opened a second shop on Madi ...
, whose store windows showed posters of Depp displaying their razors with the slogan "Handsome Doesn't Just Happen".
The first
trailer for the film was released on August 12, attached to ''
The Expendables 3''. The second trailer was released on November 12 and was attached to ''
Dumb and Dumber To'', ''
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1'', ''
Horrible Bosses 2
''Horrible Bosses 2'' is a 2014 American crime comedy directed by Sean Anders and written by Anders and John Morris. A sequel to 2011's ''Horrible Bosses'', the film stars Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx ...
'', ''
Top Five'', and ''
The Gambler''.
Reception
Box office
''Mortdecai'' grossed $7.7 million in North America and $39.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $47.3 million, against a production budget of $60 million.
The film was released in North America on January 23, 2015. The film was projected to gross around $10 million from 1,586 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $1.5 million its first day and went on to gross $4.2 million in its opening weekend, finishing 9th at the box office. In its third week the film was pulled from 2,395 theaters (a 90.4% drop), the 10th biggest theater drop in history at the time.
Critical response
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 12% based on 112 reviews and an average rating of 3.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Aggressively strange and willfully unfunny, the misguided ''Mortdecai'' sounds a frightfully low note in Johnny Depp's post-''Pirates'' filmography". On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a score of 27 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". On Twitter,
Robbie Collin of ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' characterised the film as "The Crap Budapest Hotel", elaborating in his review: "Mortdecai: mort de cinéma, more like". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.
In January 2015, Christopher Rosen of ''
The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' said that ''Mortdecai'' "seems destined to be rated as the worst film of 2015, and deservedly so".
Accolades
References
External links
*
*
''Mortdecai'' production info pageat Lionsgate
*
Production Notesat Lionsgate
*
*
{{Johnny Depp
2015 films
2015 comedy films
2015 action comedy films
2010s heist films
2010s spy comedy films
American action comedy films
American heist films
American spy comedy films
Cultural depictions of Francisco Goya
Films directed by David Koepp
Films produced by Johnny Depp
Films scored by Geoff Zanelli
Films based on British novels
Films based on multiple works of a series
Films set in London
Films set in Los Angeles
Films shot in Buckinghamshire
Films shot in London
Lionsgate films
Infinitum Nihil films
Odd Lot Entertainment films
Films shot at Pinewood Studios
2010s English-language films
2010s American films