Robert Altman’s New Hollywood neo-noir “The Long Goodbye” has all the markings of old school film noir – a private eye, a femme fatale, a twisty crime-driven story, seedy characters, and so on. But Altman’s film is just as much a stiff jab at classic noir, a revisionist incarnation, and at times a borderline mockery. And what better way to poke fun at a “genre” (and annoy its fans) than by using one of its most renowned characters as your centerpiece.

As I’ve written before, I love film noir. And while they don’t come around very often these days, I’ll be first in line every time one does. But I also like Altman’s unique and fascinating spin. It’s entertaining from start to finish and it features many of the characteristics I look for and love in a film noir. But Altman and screenwriter Leigh Brackett (who was the co-writer of the 1946 Humphrey Bogart noir classic “The Big Sleep”) take several of those very same characteristics and turn them on their heads. The results are pretty great.

It starts with the lead character, noir stalwart Philip Marlowe, this time played by Elliott Gould. What better way to prod the “genre” than through one of its most well known protagonists? Altman’s Marlowe isn’t nearly as sharp. He routinely seems one step behind. He’s even a bit of a sap. And he often comes across as a man out of time (a 1940s gumshoe in 1970s Hollywood). It seeps out in everything from his chain-smoking (no one else smokes) to the 1948 Lincoln Continental Cabriolet he drives around town.

Rather than the first-person narration that often accompanies film noirs, here the haggard Marlowe constantly mumbles to himself. It’s mostly early on (Altman seems to forget about it in the second half) and the bits we’re able to make out can be pretty funny. He lives in a top floor L.A. apartment where he keeps to himself outside of his occasional exchanges with the free-spirited hippie girls next door. And there is his picky-eating cat (there’s a great early scene where Marlowe goes to the supermarket at 3AM to get cat food – terrifically written, shot, and edited).

One evening Marlowe’s drab routine is shaken when he’s paid a visit by his good friend Terry Lennox (played by baseball player Jim Bouton). Terry needs help getting out of town so he asks Marlowe for a ride across the Southern border to Tijuana. It’s suspicious but Marlowe doesn’t ask any questions. When he gets back Marlowe is visited by LAPD detectives who take him in for questioning. We learn they’re looking for Terry and are prepared to charge him with the murder of his wife, Sylvia. Marlowe doesn’t cooperate and ends up spending three days in the county jail with little to no explanation.

After Marlowe is let out he pushes the cops for information. They tell him Terry was found dead in Mexico of an apparent suicide. Marlowe isn’t having any of it. “I don’t believe he killed her. I don’t believe he killed himself.” He wants answers, but first he’s approached by Eileen Wade (Nina van Pallandt) who happens to live in the same neighborhood as Terry and Sylvia. She wants Marlowe to find her alcoholic husband Roger (Sterling Hayden), a blustering giant who has been gone for a week. Marlowe agrees to help, but little does he know, his search for Roger ends up setting him on the path to find out the truth about Terry.

As with any good noir – even one more focused on bucking trends than following them – we get an array of mysterious characters. In addition to Pallandt’s Eileen and Hayden’s Roger, we get a really good Mark Rydell playing a dangerous gangster named Marty Augustine. Henry Gibson pops up playing a bizarro Dr. Verringer. There’s even a young Arnold Schwarzenegger making a fun uncredited appearance.

The supporting work is good throughout, but it all comes down to the wisecracking Gould – messy and unkept, with a cigarette loosely dangling from the corner of his mouth. He’s the special sauce that makes the whole thing work and a perfect fit for the kind of movie Altman is shooting for. Throw in the jazzy score from none other than John Williams and Vilmos Zsigmondy’s well-calibrated cinematography and you have an immensely entertaining noir that gleefully goes against the grain.

VERDICT – 4 STARS