Review: The Mighty Quinn Is An Oddball Classic
- Jul 15, 2018
- 2 min read
Denzel Washington finds his way to the Caribbean in this offbeat 80s crime comedy that’s far more chill than it should be. Not that that’s a problem.
Chief Xavier Quinn (Washington) is called in for a murder. A man at a luxury hotel has had his throat slit, and the body has been left in the hot tub. It doesn’t help that there’s a suitcase filled with money, $10,000 to be precise, and the prime suspect is Xavier’s old friend Maubee (Robert Townsend). Quinn has a choice, clear his friends name, or follow the letter of the law.
There are two types of strange movie. The kind made for the express purpose of being strange, and The Mighty Quinn. Maybe it’s the foreign nature of Jamaican culture, Denzel Washington’s all over the place accent, the reggae stylings that permeate almost every scene, or the strangely relaxed nature of the whole thing. Even the most tense of moments are treated with a strange mix of rhythmic drums and bog standard film techniques. Almost every shot seems locked off, which makes any action or intense conversation feel at once absurd and unnatural. And it’s pretty great.
The score is overwhelmingly catchy, and if you don’t find yourself tapping along to the beat on occasion, you might just be dead inside. Seriously, just listen to this.
Washington is endlessly charismatic, as he almost always is, and every other character and line seems thrown in for maximum unintentional comedy.
There’s something to be said for movies like The Mighty Quinn. In a strictly critical sense, it isn’t very good, but there’s something endearing about its earnestness. The film is one more focused on entertaining, not through large scale action, snappy editing or enthralling stories, but through a well rounded cast of entertaining characters. Will it blow your mind? No. Will you enjoy it? I know I did.
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