Mortdecai
About the Film
Charlie Mortdecai is a roguish, perpetually broke English art dealer with a magnificent moustache and an even bigger sense of his own importance. Deep in debt and desperate to keep his beloved wife Johanna in the manner she expects, he is press-ganged by MI5 — via his long-suffering inspector nemesis Martland — into recovering a stolen Goya painting rumoured to hold the key to a fortune in lost Nazi gold.
What follows is a globe-trotting farce that bounces from London to Moscow to Los Angeles, with Mortdecai bumbling through gun-toting villains, a randy heiress and his own cowardice, kept alive mainly by his devoted, absurdly capable manservant Jock. Adapted from Kyril Bonfiglioli’s cult comic novels, it’s a broad, mustache-twirling caper played squarely for laughs.
Plot synopsis by johnny-depp.org.
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp plays Charlie Mortdecai as a preening, cowardly, endlessly vain art dealer — a comic creation built around an outrageous moustache he refuses to shave even when it’s ruining his marriage. Adopting a plummy upper-class English drawl and a gift for physical comedy (including a running gag about a sympathetic gag reflex), Depp pitches the performance as pure farce, leaning fully into the character’s ridiculous, dandyish absurdity.
Cast & Crew
Cast
Charlie MortdecaiJohnny Depp
Johanna MortdecaiGwyneth Paltrow
Inspector Alistair MartlandEwan McGregor
Jock StrappPaul Bettany
Georgina KrampfOlivia Munn
Milton KrampfJeff Goldblum
Emil StragoUlrich Thomsen
Crew
DirectorDavid Koepp
ScreenplayEric Aronson
Based on the novels byKyril Bonfiglioli
MusicGeoff Zanelli & Mark Ronson
CinematographyFlorian Hoffmeister
ProducersAndrew Lazar, Johnny Depp, Christi Dembrowski
StudioLionsgate
Filming Locations
- London, England
- Oxford, England
- Los Angeles, California
More about this film
Trivia
- The film is based on Kyril Bonfiglioli’s 1970s comic novel Don’t Point That Thing at Me, the first of the Mortdecai books.
- Charlie’s elaborate moustache is a running joke throughout the film — and it was a genuine talking point of the marketing campaign.
- Johnny Depp also served as a producer on the film through his Infinitum Nihil company.
