Poolman

Poolman sees Chris Pine star as easy-going pool attendant Darren Barrenman in the actor’s directorial debut, which he also executive produced and co-wrote. Predominately clad in swimwear and sunglasses, Darren cares about two things: cleaning the pool at the rundown apartment complex he works at with the dedication and discipline of a Buddhist monk and striving to make LA a better place by continually crashing city council meetings. However, Darren gets swept into a grand conspiracy when mysterious femme fatale June (DeWanda Wise) shows up at the pool and tells him to investigate the city’s politicians.

What follows is an LA noir-flavoured outing with a moody jazz score and assortment of strange characters. Pine’s film is essentially Chinatown meets The Big Lebowski and Under The Silver Lake in terms of its style and plot. Unfortunately, though, Poolman struggles to recapture what made its influences work, delivering a finished product that feels underbaked.

Not only does it take a substantially long time for the main investigation to get underway, but the mystery itself simply isn’t that compelling. The script is too busy trying to follow the narrative beats of Chinatown that it forgets to be its own thing. When it isn’t making self-aware references to the classic film (which it does on more than one occasion), scenes are full of prolonged conversations about topics that have nothing to do with what’s going on, with throwaway jokes and nods to other films likewise adding little to the experience. While the goal is to create a surreal sense humour, with Danny DeVito and Annette Bening’s appearance as Darren’s neighbours Jack and Diane lending some personality to proceedings, the gags come across more awkward than they do offbeat.

A reason for this shortcoming is that this movie doesn’t go far enough with its style. Whereas Under the Silver Lake was an absurdist fever dream coloured by a fantastically moody soundtrack that paid homage to classic Hollywood, Poolman tries to achieve the same feel with a handful of strange plot points and some bluesy chords.     

With a protagonist who’s not as cool as The Dude and a mystery that isn’t as pulpy as Under the Silver Lakes’, Pine’s LA noir directorial debut fails to make much of a splash as a genre piece.

Andrew Murray

Poolman is released on Prime Video on 28^th June 2024.

Watch the trailer for Poolman here: