The Merry Gentleman Review
By David Kempler
Ladies and Gentlemen, Prepare to be Bored
About six months ago I was talking to a buddy and asked him whatever happened to Michael Keaton. He shrugged his shoulders and remarked that now that I had mentioned it, he hadn't seen Keaton in quite some time. He has always been, in my opinion, a vastly underrated actor, capable of comedy, drama, and pulling off deranged, as he did so well in "Pacific Heights". Whatever he has been up to, he has returned, and not only is he the star of the show but he is also the director of the show.
"The Merry Gentleman" opens as a smoldering, crackling, moody mystery that finds Frank Logan (Keaton) assassinating "ordinary citizens". People get shot in office buildings, cars, wherever they happen to be. Logan is calculating, unfeeling, unfazed and seemingly acting without reason. Of course we know there is a reason and the journey will hopefully reveal everything in a rewarding way. That is not the case here.
Kelly Macdonald (Kate Frazier) answers phones in an average office and exists in a world with overly average people. Her path crosses with Logan when she thinks she may have witnessed someone pondering suicide. This interaction sets off a series of events that feel improbable, forced, and that simply don't make much sense. People are being executed, cops are looking for the bad guys and Logan and Macdonald find themselves in the middle of a non-relationship.
What started as an intriguing film simply devolves into a bore-fest that leaves us scratching our heads. We sit there anxiously awaiting something, anything to happen. Perhaps it will enlighten us as to what is going on behind the readily apparent. But nothing does happen. To be totally fair there are one or two moments of mystery but these instances also lay out there like a balloon that has lost all of its air. Again, nothing is explained to the audience. We are reduced to staring at something even if we do not have a clue what it is.
When "The Merry Gentleman" mercifully ends and the credits roll you are left with nothing to hold onto or chew upon. Certainly this has been done on purpose; the question is why. When the lights came on inside the theater, I turned to my lady friend and asked her to explain to me what we had just witnessed. She shrugged and didn't have a clue. I turned to the row of people behind us but they were as confused as we were as to what we had watched. The same scene played out all over the theater. It left me wishing that Mr. Keaton had waited a bit longer to return to the screen.
