A ★★★½ review of The January Man (1989) (original) (raw)

Andy “MovieHoovie” Hoover’s review published on Letterboxd:

It’s kind of terrible but also kind of genius. It was ahead of its time for 1989 and is now dated for 2021. Its “time” I think was around mid-‘90s-to-mid-‘00s, in the era and vein of odd-ball charmers like Destiny Turns on the Radio, Nurse Betty, Lucky Number Slevin and things like that.

I don’t think people get that the all-over-the-place tone of the film has a point: to do everything it can to basically de-sensationalize murder/murderers and, to a lesser degree, the standard police procedural which has become an extension for the glorification of murder, and instead celebrate the importance of life.

When Kevin Kline is at the cafe with Mastroantonio for the first time and declines to interview her as a potential witness to data surrounding a murder, it’s because she speaks (to the audience) of not wasting time to focus on formality but to get to know and care for one-another, and so we start another charming, oddball side-plot (of which there are about 4) of new romance — to “celebrate life” since “in 100 years we’ll all be dead”, she says (so why concern the film with death).

It further hits the point home by playing the killer-catching-and-revealing as total farce.

So, I get the tonal imbalance here. It holds a very unique if messy charm and I laughed enough times too, alongside my scrunched brows of perplexity.

And Alan Rickman rocks!