Last Looks — Mel Gibson pops up in a shaggy crime movie

Something is rotten in the state of Hollywood in comic crime yarn Last Looks. Hasn’t it always been? If the movie has the air of time travel, it isn’t just the vintage noir premise of a lone private eye. Just as old-fangled is the nature of the Tinseltown worked by sleuth Charlie Waldo (Charlie Hunnam). Here it remains a place of godlike studios and all-powerful networks — not the current shrunken adjunct to the tech industry.

In case these anachronisms weren’t enough, the film also feels like a pilot for the kind of TV detective show much in vogue in the 2000s. In a crowded market, their gumshoes came with distinguishing features: Monk obsessive-compulsive, Bones into forensics, Castle a crime writer. Here Waldo crosses town on a bicycle, an eco-recluse who lives among chickens. In true small-screen style, we even get a celebrity guest star: “And Mel Gibson,” declare the credits.

These days Gibson’s presence in a film is like the infamous French andouillette sausage: a delicacy to some, noxious deal-breaker to others. Those who hold their nose will witness an outsize turn as the veteran English star of a popular crime show, permanently soused, ripely accented, given to regaling the crew with anecdotes about VD. The ghost of Oliver Reed might raise an eyebrow, not least when — unlike poor Ollie — the character is accused of murdering his wife.

The tone can wobble even without the un-cancelled Gibson. (Bizarrely, the film, directed by Tim Kirkby, also furnishes his character with a cutie-pie daughter for whom he does Hamlet.) But the studied trolling is really set dressing for what is at heart simply a passably shaggy genre piece, red herrings tossed about with the wilful eccentricity of a cyclist weaving down an LA freeway.

★★★☆☆

On digital platforms from June 10