When I first started as a film critic, I had close to zero problems writing a bad review. My calculus was simple; if you make a film and release it for public consumption, you should be prepared for positive and negative reactions. You worked really hard on a project and people don’t like it? Hey, them’s the breaks. Plus, if I’m being honest with you, there was a low, cruel kind of pleasure I’d get trashing a movie. Coming up with the right zinger, the right snide remark. 

Over time, my perspective changed, mostly due to some bright spots in my screenwriting career. An up close look at the filmmaking process showed me that every production is a series of massive struggles and little miracles. Imagine the worst movie you’ve ever seen, and imagine that it was likely made under conditions that would simply break most people. I also think about how much effort I’ve put into my own work, and the sting I’d feel for someone to say, “It sucked!” Even worse? “Meh.”

That perspective means I’m not a very good critic, since I’m (perhaps too often?) willing to cut filmmakers some slack. Okay, a lot of slack. Once in a while, I come across a movie that I didn’t connect with. Today is that day with the noir/comedy The Dummy Detective, and every time I feel this way about a movie, I ask myself if the problem is with the movie or me?

We’re introduced to a world of shadows, of mean streets, of hard men and harder women. Oh, and dummies. I don’t use that term in the pejorative sense. I am, of course, referring to vent figures, puppets, ventriloquist dummies. Yes, giant-ass puppets with huge eyes, floppy limbs, and jaws that could demolish a walnut. In this world, they don’t so much walk among us as they are awkwardly carried among us.

The hero of the piece is Van Trillo (Jonathan Geffner). It’s hard to say which is his side gig – being a ventriloquist or being a detective. After performing a gig in a seedy bar, Trillo is approached by Chloe Lake (Deborah Twiss). Her mother has allegedly met with foul play, and she wants Trillo to track down the killer and deliver them to justice. Trillo refuses. Why? Because he’s a noir detective, and they always refuse initially.

Chloe ends up in the charmingly named town of World’s End, at a sprawling bed and breakfast run by Harriet Hubbard (Sean Young). There’s something…off about Harriet, and not just the fact that she writes murder mysteries on the side. She’s not the only weirdo there, and she’s joined by former ventriloquist and current late night radio host Elliot Black (Ed Altman), socialite Hortense Grimsly (Kristin Samuelson), Hortense’s quiet husband Archibald (David Lambert), and Hortense’s doctor-who-sure-seems-like-more-than-a-doctor Cox (Hari Bhaskar).

Chloe is sure she’s onto the trail of her mother’s murderer, and the plot obliges her when people in the B&B start getting bumped off. She calls Trillo for help. This time he agrees, and we know he’s serious because he arrives at the B&B with three dummies, the main one being the identically dressed Sam Suede. From there, lies will be uncovered. Mysteries will be solved. Suspects will be brutally interrogated by puppets.

A look at director Rob Margolies’ filmography shows me he’s worked steadily on features, shorts, and TV movies for years. Someone with that level of experience can do a lot with a little, and I have a feeling the budget for The Dummy Detective was modest. Margolies got his hands on a house and/or sets, and made the most of it. We have scenes of people creeping down shadowy hallways, people falling down beautiful flights of stairs, and people being yelled at by dummies in tastefully decorated rooms. Margolies is clearly going for a noir feel, and on the surface, he succeeds. 

As I see it, the screenplay by Jonathan Goffner is where the problems truly are. Very often, when a horror/comedy is made, it’s neither funny enough nor scary enough to be satisfying. That’s one of the big issues here. The screenplay attempts to smash together a hard-boiled mystery with a goofy comedy, and doesn’t really succeed either way.* With the mystery, I found it hard to care about the death of a character I never saw and had no emotional attachment to. With the comedy, there were a few good gags.** But the script rarely seizes on the inherent strangeness of ventriloquism as a jumping-off point for real comedy. It implies the puppets are sentient, yet doesn’t pay off that concept in a satisfying way. If you’re making a movie about a ventriloquist detective, you need to be prepared to go to some strange places. What we’re left with is a screenplay that promises something much weirder than it actually delivers. 

I have big respect for actors in comedies that understand how to play the material without broadly winking at the audience. Here, everyone is fully dialed in. Goffner nails the world-weary detective vibe as Trillo. He’s fully committed to the bit, even when also handling the vocal performances. Also committed to the bit is Deborah Twiss as Chloe. She does nice work as maybe a damsel in distress/maybe a femme fatale, and she’s got a few inspired moments. Were she given the chance to go fully bonkers, I’m confident Twiss could have delivered something exceptional. If there’s a standout in the cast, it’s Sean Young. Her Harriet has a solid running gag about predicting each murder beforehand. There are a few times we see the deep well of strangeness she taps into, and if only we had seen more of that, we would have had something special.

Every time I walk into a theater, or fire up one of the many, many streaming services,*** I want the movie I’ve chosen to succeed. I want to spread the gospel of an undiscovered cinematic triumph. I wanted The Dummy Detective to work, and I wanted to implore you to see it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. But I ask myself again, is the problem with the movie or me? I don’t know.

*It doesn’t have to be evenly balanced, though! Consider that the mystery in Clue isn’t compelling, but the jokes come thick and fast enough that it doesn’t matter. 

**I particularly enjoyed Sean Young’s line regarding her bed, “It’s king-sized. California king. Northern California king.”

***Foolishly, I thought streaming would be far cheaper than paying for cable. 

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.