Zen Noir

Runs at Varsity, Fri., Oct. 27–Thurs., Nov. 2. Not rated. 81 minutes.

Any hopes that Marc Rosenbush’s film might transcend its unimaginative title are dashed almost immediately, as manic fade-outs, fade-ins, and overlays of portentous symbols give way to mannered dialogue and bad jokes. The thin plot involves a detective (Duane Sharp) who gets a tip about a murder at a Buddhist temple and goes to investigate. Nonsensically, we’ve already seen the “murder”—a monk falling over dead, without provocation, during meditation. The script tosses us a few red herrings before morphing into a didactic (and stultifying) lesson in spiritual enlightenment. Along the way, it commits a few crimes of its own, against noir, Buddhism, and filmmaking. For one: Sharp’s detective, a sweaty jumble of nerves, lacks even a twinge of allure; the actor stammers and stutters, indicating distress rather than acting it. Debra Miller, playing a female practitioner, fares better, but the weird and remote interplay between the two is speciously sold as romance. (“What’s a lay person?” “A person who can still get laid.”) It’s a long 81 minutes. Melissa Levine