I went into this not expecting much but Edward Norton gave till it hurt. Overall, this was a great movie with some amazing performances by Norton and his fantastic ensemble cast. So well acted by such fine actors. It's a very good murder mystery. That classic gum shoe style was done perfectly. I love the art direction. He painted a great picture of 50s style New York. And the music was stellar. Those jazz numbers really blended in perfectly with the atmosphere. Then I had that one piece of music made by Thom Yorke of Radiohead (you'll know it once you hear). This was a really great movie.

It's 1950's New York. Private detective Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton) has Tourette's Syndrome. His boss and best friend is murdered while on a case. He intends to solve it and find his killers. It leads him to a series of urban gentrification efforts against the black and Latino population. A mystery man (Willem Dafoe) directs him to all powerful developer Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin) who controls everything including the politics. He falls for Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who is fighting for the minorities in the city.

I really like the story of corruption and power in city politics. It's Chinatown all over again. I wish that Edward Norton played it straight with a little more clarity in the beginning. Mostly I wish that he could get out the Tourette's. I haven't read the book and I'm not saying that he's doing it wrong. The story is so dense that more than anything, the Tourette's is distracting. It's unnecessary and it doesn't serve much. There are obvious mistakes that Lionel makes but I buy them for his character. He's smart but this is not Sherlock. All in all, I really like the crime noir story but I still want some changes.

Edward Norton has Tourette's Syndrome, which comes out when he is stressed, which does not include driving a car, or getting into a gunfight or walking into a strange location when you expect them to kill you. He works for Bruce Willis, who runs a detective agency out of Brooklyn. Willis gets kidnapped and shot, so Norton is the man in the shop who is supposed to track down the killer. This leads him on a tour of an alternate 1956 New York City, which seems to be populated by great actors like Willem Dafoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Cherry Jones, Bobby Cannavale and Alec Baldwin as a megalomaniac closely modeled on Robert Moses. One of them is the bad guy. Guess which and why.... I had it figured out four minutes before Norton did, but then, I don't have Tourette's. Still, that means it's a fair mystery.... not who, but why.

Mostly, though, it's a chance for actors to strut their stuff, and none more so than Norton, who besides having Tourette's has an eidetic memory, smokes pot to control his symptoms, and will never be rich. No one seems to be put off by his tics, including touching women, making comments which are mildly lewd, making noises while jazz musicians play, and in one scene where he is trying to light a lady's cigarette, repeatedly lighting a match and blowing it out before it can get to the cigarette. Everyone is astonishingly enlightened, except, of course, Baldwin. Being evil, he hates poor people, and Blacks in particular.

Good acting, but when I want to visit 1956 New York City, I don't want everyone there to be from 2019. Still, some great acting, some great locations, and the CGI recreation of Penn Station revives my anger towards the morons who tore it down.