THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM (2017)

Studio:       RLJ Entertainment
Director:    Juan Carlos Medina
Writer:       Jane Goldman
Producer:  Stephen Woolley, Elizabeth Karlsen, Joanna Lauris
Stars:     Bill Nighy, Olivia Cooke, Douglas Booth, Daniel Mays, Sam Reid, Maria Valverde, Henry Goodman, Paul Ritter, Morgan Watkins, Peter Sullivan, Eddie Marsan

Review Score:

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Summary:

A detective, an actor, and a wife accused of killing her husband cross paths in the case of a serial killer terrorizing 1880s London.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

London, 1880 – Former music hall performer Lizzie Cree finds her husband, failed playwright John Cree, dead from poisoning in their home. Lizzie’s servant Aveline Ortega, a former actress who used to work with Lizzie, implicates Lizzie in John’s death to constable George Flood. Lizzie is arrested.

Looking for a scapegoat in the event the crimes go unsolved, Inspector Roberts of Scotland Yard hands over the case of ‘The Limehouse Golem’ to Detective Inspector John Kildare, who is widely derided on suspicion of being homosexual. Kildare partners with George Flood to investigate the Golem, who is an elusive serial killer responsible for several gruesome murders.

A Latin literature passage written on the wall of a crime scene leads Kildare to the library. There, Kildare discovers a book that the Golem used as a diary detailing his crimes. From the library patron manifest, Kildare comes up with four suspects: Karl Marx, author George Gissing, popular music hall performer Dan Leno, and Lizzie’s husband John Cree.

Looking to learn more about John Cree, Kildare attends Lizzie’s trial. Kildare becomes sympathetic to Lizzie when he learns of her history as an abused child. Kildare suggests to Lizzie that she could go free if it turns out her husband committed suicide out of guilt over secretly being the Limehouse Golem. Unfortunately, all of John Cree’s papers were destroyed, leaving no available handwriting sample to compare against the diary.

Lizzie tells Kildare how she came to work at the music hall managed by Tommy “Uncle” Farr following her mother’s death. Dan Leno took a liking to Lizzie and became her acting mentor.

Kildare discovers Leno was already a suspect in the Golem murders when prostitute Alice Stanton was found dead in a gown bearing Leno’s name on the label. Leno proved he sold the gown, which was used in one of his shows, to secondhand clothier Mr. Gerrard, whose family was also murdered by the Golem.

Kildare returns to the jail for another conversation with Lizzie. Lizzie recounts how she first met John Cree when he became a regular backstage at the music hall. Kildare and Lizzie trace John’s potentially murderous origins back to the death of comic dwarf Little Victor, who fell down a staircase shortly after making a sexual advance on Lizzie over dinner. In the aftermath, Lizzie performed onstage for the first time as a tribute to Little Victor and instantly became a crowd favorite.

Clues in the death of Jewish scholar Salomon Weil lead Kildare and Flood to Karl Marx. However, Kildare quickly rules out Marx as a suspect for being the Limehouse Golem.

Aveline Ortega gives damning testimony at Lizzie’s trial. Lizzie later explains to Kildare that Aveline was in love with John, and was jealous that John was romantically interested in Lizzie. Lizzie tells Kildare how Aveline tricked her into insulting a Jewish audience, which backfired when John comforted Lizzie, leading to their first kiss. Lizzie also tells Kildare that she wasn’t really in love with John. Rather, she wanted to star in ‘Misery Junction,’ the play he was working on.

Inside the Dan Leno dress that Alice Stanton died in, Kildare finds a hidden piece of paper with an address for George Gissing. Kildare and Flood trace Gissing to an opium den to obtain a handwriting sample. Kildare rules out Gissing, but is reminded of a diary entry in which the Golem mentioned making a purchase at Gerrard’s secondhand clothing shop.

At the shop, Kildare finds the names ‘Cree’ and ‘Leno’ in the receipt ledger. Kildare questions Leno backstage after a performance of “The Limehouse Demon.” Leno suggests that Kildare should look into the death of Uncle.

Kildare returns to Lizzie. Lizzie recounts how Uncle blackmailed her into posing for his caning fetish pornography photos. When she told John, John proposed marriage to restore Lizzie’s honor. Uncle then died three days later, leaving Dan Leno to become theater manager at the music hall.

John forced himself sexually on Lizzie after their wedding. Having been forced out of acting by her husband, Lizzie returned to the music hall three months later to hire Aveline as a maid so that Aveline could fulfill Lizzie’s wifely duties of having willing sex with John.

Lizzie angrily confronted John when she discovered he had abandoned Misery Junction. Out of spite, Lizzie publicly performed the unfinished play to overwhelming jeers. Humiliated, John assaulted Lizzie outside the music hall before storming off alone. That night, the first Limehouse Golem murder was committed.

Kildare concludes that Lizzie poisoned John upon discovering he was the Limehouse Golem. However, Lizzie refuses to confess.

Lizzie is found guilty and sentenced to hang. Kildare vows to exonerate her with evidence of John’s guilt before her execution can be carried out. Lizzie directs Kildare to find the original manuscript for Misery Junction to obtain a handwriting sample.

Kildare traces the Misery Junction manuscript to the library archive. Kildare and Flood arrive in time to find Aveline trying to steal it. Kildare discovers that the handwriting in the manuscript matches the handwriting in the Golem diary.

Kildare returns to Lizzie. He gives her a paper to write a confession about having killed her husband because John was the Limehouse Golem. Instead, Lizzie writes a confession identifying herself as the Golem in the same handwriting as the diary. Shocked, Kildare puts together all of the previous clues, realizing that Lizzie was the Limehouse Golem all along and murdered John when he discovered she was the killer.

To avoid his own disgrace, Kildare burns Lizzie’s written confession. Lizzie is hanged, but Kildare is still celebrated as a hero for seemingly identifying John Cree as the Golem.

Kildare attends an updated performance of Misery Junction at the music hall. With Aveline playing Lizzie during a scene depicting Lizzie’s execution, a sabotaged safety harness results in Aveline being hanged for real. Welcomed by great applause, Dan Leno takes the stage to play Lizzie for the remainder of the performance.

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Review:

Eight years before Jack the Ripper would rise from Hell to kill his first prostitute, 1880 London finds itself contending with the similar crimes of ‘The Limehouse Golem.’  Named after the clay creature from Jewish folklore, Scotland Yard considers this savage serial killer to be so elusive, they aren’t certain they can crack the case.

Instead, they’re setting up someone to be their scapegoat.  Inspector Kildare has long been dogged by rumors of homosexuality in an era when such whispers can quickly disgrace distinguished detectives.  This makes him the perfect person to take the fall for failure.

The discovery of a handwritten diary leads Kildare to conclude the killer is probably one of four suspects: novelist George Gissing, communism creator Karl Marx, beloved comedian Dan Leno, or failed playwright John Cree.  Even with three well-known men in the mix, the name ringing the loudest bell is John Cree.  This is because Cree recently died of poisoning.  And local constable George Flood, who is partnered with Kildare, just arrested Cree’s wife Lizzie for his murder.

With Lizzie currently standing trial, Kildare goes down the time tunnel of John Cree’s past through jailhouse interviews with his widow.  Not only does Kildare uncover curious connections between the Crees and other suspects and victims, but he also comes to see Lizzie as a sympathetic chess piece manipulated by machinations in a larger conspiracy.

As crime scene clues from past and present converge, Kildare unravels a mystery centered on a music hall known as much for murder as it is for mirth.  Unmasking the Golem proves to be as challenging as Kildare feared, though his direct involvement is about to recast him as a key figure in his own investigation.

For many viewers of “The Limehouse Golem,” it probably won’t take more than, oh, thirty minutes max to deduce the titular terror’s true identity.  Foresight doesn’t necessarily erect an impediment to enjoying how this predictable path plays out.  However, it introduces an issue with getting behind Kildare as an intellectually elite detective.  Bill Nighy, as always, presents a stand-up-and-take-notice command of his cunning and cultured character.  He is fierce, dignified, and yet somehow unable to see something obvious for an audience.  I want to be admiring Nighy’s inspector for having incredible intuition, not wondering how he fell six steps behind my layman’s mind.

“The Limehouse Golem” might not work as a whodunit.  Luckily, the movie is much more satisfying as an immersive period piece punctuated by brief bits of ghastly gruesomeness.

Even cloistered by set dimension restrictions, production design breaks its back bringing Ripper-era London to life in lavish detail.  Gaslights, cobblestones, and crinoline skirts don’t even cover the tip of the glacier with regard to how rich this world is.  Cramped corridors end up amplifying a claustrophobic intensity perfectly paired with the police procedural plotline.

108 minutes is a touch overlong for “The Limehouse Golem,” which hits overindulgent hiccups like two musical numbers (much of the movie takes place in a theater) that don’t serve the story.  At the same time, it seems a crime to tsk-tsk director Juan Carlos Medina for wanting to bask in this terrific throwback atmosphere for as many minutes as he can get away with.

Without noting the credit beforehand, one might guess screenwriter Jane Goldman adapted the movie from a novel (Peter Ackroyd’s “Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem”).  “The Limehouse Golem” loads itself to bear with thematic threads and side plots that don’t make sense for this abbreviated narrative, yet seem inspired by some greater value.  Karl Marx, for instance, is crossed off so quickly as a suspect, it’s a wonder he is included at all, except as an obligatory afterthought of an addition likely more relevant to the source material.

These kinds of goose chases, which also come in the form of a homophobia seed that doesn’t bear ripe fruit, suggest the script needed another scrubbing to trim down fluff while constructing more convincing misdirects.  Although entertaining overall, an underwhelming outcome makes the movie something like donning formal attire to dine with the queen at Buckingham Palace, only to be served a platinum platter of Big Macs and fries.

That’s too harsh of an analogy to justify the attempt at a comedic barb.  What I mean to say is that the story isn’t exactly disappointing, though it is loaded in a cannon of top talent and impressive cinematic execution when it could be fired from a pistol all the same.

It’s only a minor shame that the movie could make more out of its story, as it still deserves applause on multiple levels.  While the performances won’t rank at the top of their respective all-time lists, the cast is full of actors who are always engaging no matter the movie.  And whether the film meets personal preferences for a murder mystery or not, it nevertheless earns an A grade for achieving maximum Victorian villainy on a minimum movie budget.

Review Score:  65

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