Michael Ledo Robert Downey jr. plays Danny Dark, a writer of pulp fiction novel called "The Singing Detective." He is hospitalized with a skin disorder which apparently is psychological. His shrink is played by Mel Gibson, in an unorthodox role for him. Dark's novel is based on events in his childhood, making characters from people he had met. Danny is delusional and imagines things in the present, confounding the people in real life with the characters in his book. The dialogue in the movie is excellent. If you enjoyed the dark humor of the Joker in the Dark Knight, you will enjoy the ramblings of Downey early on. The real problem with the movie is that you realize that all the action in the film is delusional. As far as real action and plot, the film moves along as a one man play. Bad language, simulated sex, no nudity.

ramsri007 The Singing Detective is surely not an easy movie to watch. Downey's cracked up skin makes it all the more difficult visually. Robert Downey Jr. plays the main character, Dan Dark. Dan is a writer of cheap, lurid detective novels, who is hospitalized for a severe case of psoriasis. He is shown to be in immense pain and is almost disabled from going about his normal routine due to the painful lesions. In the process he hallucinates to an extent that he cannot decipher the real from illusion due to which he is almost on the verge of losing his mind. He often lapses into a fantasy world in which he is the main character in his own novel. But soon the characters from the novel start to appear in the real world. We are taken on a journey into Dan Dark's dark & unpleasant mind? Downey, as always leaves his imprint as an actor par excellence. We meet Dan's wife, played by Robin Wright. Mel Gibson plays a rather strange psychologist who may well be able to help Dan if only Dan actually wanted to be helped. Doctor Gibbon helps Dan Dark deal with his bitterness that seems to have consumed him since he fell ill. Gibbon gets an insight into Mr Dark by reading his book, he then uses this to help Mr Dark on the road to his mental recovery. The movie is about how Dan Dark fights the demons he has created for himself and overcomes them to go on with his life.

tieman64 Based on a well-regarded TV-series by British writer Dennis Potter, director Keith Gordon's "The Singing Detective" stars Robert Downey Jr. as Dan Dark. Dark's suffering from a painful skin condition which requires him to be hospitalised for long periods."Detective" can be divided into three overlapping sections. In its finest section, we watch as Dan's condition exerts a severe toll on his body and mind. Covered in ghoulish lesions, scales and wounds, Dan is understandably perpetually embarrassed and bitter. These emotions slowly blossom into self-hate, and an unbridled rage which Dan hurls at anyone who approaches his hospital bed. Robert Downey Jr. captures Dark's torment expertly."The Singing Detective's" other sections are less successful. As Dan's condition has cut him off from the outside world, Dan's become an author. Sublimating his desires, the bedridden writer is also prone to elaborate flights of fancy, Dan imagining vaudeville routines, musical numbers and film-noir inspired detective plots, most of which feature Dan himself as a handsome, suave and talented man. These "fantasy sequences" bleed into the film's "reality sequences" which themselves bleed into the film's third segment, which attempts to delve into Dan's childhood. All three segments contain characters, doubles, doppelgängers, situations and motifs which overlap from one segment to the next. But for the most part, all the film's wild excursions serve only to distract from its more interesting, central premise: Robert Downey Jr. disfigured, immobile and consumed by self-hate.Dennis Potter's 1986's TV-series, "The Singing Detective", had several hours to languidly tell its tale. What emerged was a weird and partially autobiographical tale (Potter also suffered from a skin condition), lent gravity by its extended running time. Potter's neurotic writer was trapped in his own little Freudian nightmare, wrestles with an Oedipal complex and metaphorically "kills himself" (thus "freeing" himself from various psychological scars). But those zany happenings occurred over many hours. The TV format gave Potter's tale room to breath, unfurl and take on tragic dimensions. Keith Gordon, in contrast, tries to cram all this material into a two hour running time. The result is something that is frenetic and thin. It also doesn't help that "The Singing Detective's" brand of post-modernism, relatively new in the 1980s, is now commonplace and so tedious. Today, all you need is Downey in a bed. Nothing else.6.5/10 – Worth one viewing.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- The Singing Detective, 2003, An hospitalized 3rd rate hack writer of detective books suffering from his psychosomatic illness needs to free himself from his daydream fiction life of his alter ego, a singing detective to get mentally adjusted and well.*Special Stars- Robert Downey Jr, Robin Wright Penn, Adrien Brody, Jon Polito, Katie Holmes, Mel Gibson.*Theme- Your life could be a novel or a dream, it's up to you.*Trivia/location/goofs- Paramount Pictures, B & W film noir sequences with present day scenes, Rated 'R' for the multiple 40's sex scenes involving fictional call-girls and gangsters. Look for a heavily disguised famous lead actor & film producer on camera playing a helpful bald psychologist. Shot around downtown Los Angeles and the Silver Lake area.*Emotion- A rather crazy confusing film with too many 'flash-back' or dream sequences in film noir and back to plot present-day reality, but somewhat saved by the rest of the film's scenes and actors. It's all clues, with no solutions. This film has some spirited musical lip-sync songs with a killer 50's music tracks. It's a very odd plot and film.