Chaplin

Directed by Richard Attenborough, Chaplin follows Charlie Chaplin (Robert Downey Jr) as he attempts to make a name for himself in silent movies while also dealing with a number of complications in his personal life. Filmmaker Attenborough, armed with a script by William Boyd, Bryan Forbes, and William Goldman, delivers a fairly standard biopic that remains wholly unable to capture (and sustain) the viewer’s interest, as the movie, which runs a palpably overlong 145 minutes, suffers from scattershot narrative that races through the various events and episodes within its subject’s life – with Attenborough’s frenetic sensibilities ensuring that one’s efforts at working up any interest in or sympathy for Chaplin’s troubles fall hopelessly flat throughout. (It doesn’t help, certainly, that the movie cycles through Chaplin’s various love interests so quickly that it becomes impossible to care about any of them.) And although the picture benefits substantially from Downey Jr’s undeniably impressive performance, as well as the work of charming periphery players like Dan Aykroyd, Kevin Kline, and Moira Kelly, Chaplin‘s paucity of standout sequences paves the way for a momentum-free second half that’s hardly able to pack the engaging, emotional punch for which Attenborough is clearly striving – with the end result a disappointing biography that rarely, if ever, lifts itself up to Downey Jr’s superlative level.

** out of ****