Trouble Is My Business is a 2018 crime drama about a detective who falls for two sisters from the Montemar family, one who is dead and the other who wants to kill him.
Nostalgia is all the rage these days with movies taking to the 80s and 90s with an almost fervent determination, but is anyone pining for the days of real yesteryear? Like … the 1940s? Well, Tom Konkle‘s latest Trouble Is My Business seems to think so and delivers this noir-ish throwback filmed in modern indie glory (including color) with all the trappings of the Golden Age of cinema. Does it work? Well, there’s no denying its commitment and certainly it tries hard to capture the feel, even if it lacks the charms and warmth of the classics.
Private investigator Roland Drake (Konkle) is on a bad spin, his agency on the verge of foreclosure and his name smeared in the papers. It looks like the end, but in walks the sultry Miss Katherine Montemar, daughter of a prominent family whose father has gone missing. Naturally, they end up in his bed, but when he wakes the next morning, it isn’t pillow talk he gets but a sheet soaked in blood and the girl disappeared. Dizzy with confusion, he makes his way back to the office where suddenly another woman storms in, she Jennifer Montemar (Brittney Powell), Katherine’s older sister, sporting a pistol, looking for answers, and pointing a finger at Roland.
And so begins a twisted tale of all the standards in the genre, with betrayal and deceit at the top of the heap. Jennifer suspects her family is targeted, revealing to Roland she’s in possession of seedy photos of he and Katherine together, sent anonymously to her. We also learn that her father is mixed up in trouble concerning a diamond and soon enough maniacal police detective Barry Tate (Vernon Wells), a former partner of Drake gets involved, along with the devilishly troublesome Montemar mother Evelyn (Jordana Capra).
This isn’t big money movie-making, the production greatly limited by its budget, the look all akin to television soundstages. In fact, if you’re a fan Star Trek: The Next Generation, it’s nearly impossible to get through the first ten minutes of this and not think you’re watching an episode featuring Picard on the Holodeck playing gumshoe Dixon Hill. That said, Kronkle does go out of his way to build a convincing world, even if it is highly compressed. Sets and costumes give it the right atmosphere, though strangely, the use of color somehow saps the larger sense of homage it seems to be aiming for.
Credit goes to the whole production though for giving this the effort they did. The writing is pretty sharp and reminiscent enough of the classics to satisfy cinephiles longing for such. It can’t always find its footing with tone however, with the comedy not particularly handled well, and at just shy of two hours, overstays its welcome. There’s plenty of green screening and intentional CGI, yet Kronkle clearly loves this genre and sneaks in plenty of nods to the titles that inspired him to make it a curious crossover. Performances all around mostly hit the mark, with Capra engaging and Wells suitably chewing up the scenery. If you’re a fan of old-timey movies but want them wrapped in modern flare – admittedly a narrow audience – this will do the trick.