The most appropriate description of The Two Faces of January is 'stylish': that is its main selling point. Set in 1960s Greece, affluent Americans stroll around as if in a Mad Men holiday. The suspiciously well-dressed local peasantry smoke by Ancient ruins and crumbling tavernas, Hollywood's beautiful exports languidly milling about in bespoke linen. Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind deserves praise for his handling of these scenes, which capture the sun soaked environment with overexposed precision. Istanbul is used, as always, for its winding Ottoman alleyways that allow our Western heroes to be chased by moustachiod baddies.
Oscar Isaac, enjoying a career boost since Inside Llewin Davis, is Jersey-born Rydal, a tour guide who performs petty swindles and scams in central Athens. He ends up performing both these services for a wealthy American couple, comprising the mean, mysterious money-shifting Chester McFarland (Viggo Mortensen) and his young, pleasant wife Colette (Kirsten Dunst). However, a private detective shows up and informs Chester, and us, that some people who Chester defrauded back in the States are not happy. Chester accidentally kills him, Rydal helps out, and the trio are forced on the run in Hitchcockian fashion. Chester must also stop his marriage failing with the entrance of the young upstart.
The posters all declare that The Two Faces of January is brought to you by the producers of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, so you would expect that the plot would twist and turn, beguiling the viewer and forcing deep thought. But it doesn't. The events described above pretty much cover it - the chase goes on, the odd thing happens, it ends. The intelligence of TTSS, turned in on itself in knots, is entirely absent. The characters are established as shady, but are never explored, meaning that the figures on-screen are simply two dimensional stock types: swindling businessman, roguish young con artist, pretty woman. The police that follow them are just uniforms, the private investigator a flat imitation of Marlowe or Spade. The posters also declare that it's from the same novelist as The Talented Mr. Ripley and adapted by the same screenwriter as Drive. Again, bold comparisons that show just how shallow The Two Faces of January is. They are all stylish, sure, but TTFOJ is not nearly as pensive, profound or dangerous. It seems almost as if it was cobbled together as a re-hash of past glories for the pay cheque. The Mediterranean setting and sinister, plotting characters from The Talented Mr. Ripley are there, but the bubbling menace is absent.
Similarly, some themes are touched on, then left entirely. Deception, for example. Rydal mentions that he was a Yale man, which Chester doubts, but we never find out who is right. The trio circle each other in the paranoid, hot atmosphere, yet never seem to uncover personal secrets. Rydal's father is constantly mentioned, having just died, their dysfunctional relationship brought up in conversations that threaten to go somewhere. But again, nothing is made of it - it turns out Rydal just didn't really like his dad, and that's that. The actors all perform well, but without much depth to their roles they cannot take it anywhere . It leaves you wondering what the point of the whole thing is.
The chase has been a cinematic trope almost since the invention of the motion picture. Hitchcock got a lot out of them. This is what The Two Faces of January is built upon. Combine this with the visuals and it's perfectly enjoyable. A crime caper with pantomime villains, textbook tension scenes and an HD colour palate, The Two Faces of January is a worthy triumph of style over substance.
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