Clyde Cooper is a private detective who gets a new assignment: to find Vincent's missing girl, the blond Denise Morgan. Cooper goes to Denise's house, but only finds a different woman, who claims to be Denise Morgan, even though she doesn't look like her, and that she never saw the blond Denise who Cooper is looking for. Another clue is a man who shot himself while spending the night with two prostitutes: his cellphone has a photo of a woman who looks like the missing Denise. Strange things occur: Cooper finds a woman covered in cellophane in a house, and chases after a suspect, but when he returns, the woman is gone. A shady man threatens Cooper to stop his investigation. Finally, Cooper concluded that a prostitute ring is being run. He meets Denise, but her name is Nina—and she is a robot. The police arrive and take away the two robot prostitutes, while Vincent is angry at himself for falling for a fake.
"Clyde Cooper" is an independent film that evokes the mood of classic 'hard boiled' film noirs of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, while even its title protagonist acts like a 21st century version of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe: he is slick, cynical and audacious, yet also has class and calmness to stay professional when things around him lead to an ever more perplexing mystery puzzle. Actor Jordi Vilasuso manages to keep this character's persona going. While the writing and the dialogues are somewhat too ordinary and conventional at times, there are moments when a lightning stroke of inspiration strikes: for instance, in one sequence, Cooper wants to speak to Loretta Berman due to an outrageous urgency ("Do you have an appointment?" - "No, but I'm pretty sure she is dying to see me." - "What makes you so sure?" - "We met at a hotel yesterday. She showed me her dark side."), but a certain woman in a red dress refuses to let him inside the mansion. Cooper thus puts his foot down to block the door, leading to this exchange with the angry woman: "Take your foot out or I'm gonna show you my dark side!" - "You take me to Loretta Berman, and you can show me what ever side you want." Some ideas are refreshing (Cooper wants to walk upstairs inside a mansion he is investigating, but is amused when he finds out that the stairs are shaped like keyboards—and make a loud music sound whenever someone steps on them, so he nonchalantly walks up and down to make some music), though the movie needed more of them to fully engage, since a couple of moments seem strangely irrelevant for the bigger picture later on. The biggest problem and setback of "Clyde Cooper" is the twist Sci-Fi ending—you don't introduce a completely new genre 10 minutes before the end of the film. Throughout its story, such a twist is never hinted at (the story seemed like a classic detective story), and thus it seems strangely out of place—as if someone took away a proper ending and explanation of the mystery, and resorted to deux ex machina shortcuts. Nonetheless, an interesting achievement.
Grade:++
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