At the beginning of his stardom appears Clive Owen in this mixed-up mystery. As reporter Mike Deacon, he gets assigned to do a story about poverty, focusing on a bum named Billy Blake who killed himself gruesomely in a stranger's garage. But Mike senses there's more to Billy and his death than meets the eye.
A plot unravels which may or may not include embezzlement, shady business, secret identity, and murder. These kinds of plots tend to be convoluted to begin with, but "The Echo" is remarkable for how haphazardly it handles everything.
Maybe its source novel was stuffed with too many themes, plot twists, cliches, and quirky characters. "Echo" veers all over the place. First it's a mystery, then it's a family drama, then it's a drama about a self-loathing bum who spouts poetry and draws perfect forgeries of classic paintings on the sidewalk. And what the heck, now let's make one of Mike's acquaintances an idiotic trespassing voyeur.
Oddly, Part 2 changes into comedy for a long time. I did titter at watching middle-aged John Forgeham (always dressed in a track suit) chase down a nerdy prowler. (The prowler had come back to a courtyard to fetch something, but clumsy filmmaking makes us think he'd sat in the courtyard all night, and waited till daylight to make his getaway!)
The tone and dialogue get noticeably sillier, to the point of full-blown domestic farce as Mike hosts his lawyer and not one, but two troubled houseguests for Xmas. These include a homeless person said to be a minor, but played by a balding man. Ian Bartholomew is along for the ride, fuming and running around as a frustrated detective, the poor dear.
The filmmakers seem to give up; answers mostly come from "info dumps". Billy's death is supposed to have symbolic meaning to someone, but it's just lame--no character could've figured it out as intended.
Of course, our hero Mike must be a tragic one, a slobby chain smoker with a dysfunctional family and a painful past. Supposedly he gains a moral education about this. Not only is it time-consuming, but also it's linked to yet another weird shift in tone, as the program suddenly turns religious, and preaches to us about damnation and the sanctity of life. We're told that some things are "worse than crimes... They're sins!" Yes, you will hear churchy choir music on the soundtrack. Rather hypocritically, the movie bashes someone for assisting a suicide, while approving another suicide as a noble attempt to help someone.
Our bad boy reporter even acts like a priest all of a sudden, and scolds a woman in a scene filmed as if it's a Catholic confession behind a screen! Whatever points Mike has, the fact that he lectures her so soon after (unrelatedly) she had been raped left a bad taste in my mouth.
A plot unravels which may or may not include embezzlement, shady business, secret identity, and murder. These kinds of plots tend to be convoluted to begin with, but "The Echo" is remarkable for how haphazardly it handles everything.
Maybe its source novel was stuffed with too many themes, plot twists, cliches, and quirky characters. "Echo" veers all over the place. First it's a mystery, then it's a family drama, then it's a drama about a self-loathing bum who spouts poetry and draws perfect forgeries of classic paintings on the sidewalk. And what the heck, now let's make one of Mike's acquaintances an idiotic trespassing voyeur.
Oddly, Part 2 changes into comedy for a long time. I did titter at watching middle-aged John Forgeham (always dressed in a track suit) chase down a nerdy prowler. (The prowler had come back to a courtyard to fetch something, but clumsy filmmaking makes us think he'd sat in the courtyard all night, and waited till daylight to make his getaway!)
The tone and dialogue get noticeably sillier, to the point of full-blown domestic farce as Mike hosts his lawyer and not one, but two troubled houseguests for Xmas. These include a homeless person said to be a minor, but played by a balding man. Ian Bartholomew is along for the ride, fuming and running around as a frustrated detective, the poor dear.
The filmmakers seem to give up; answers mostly come from "info dumps". Billy's death is supposed to have symbolic meaning to someone, but it's just lame--no character could've figured it out as intended.
Of course, our hero Mike must be a tragic one, a slobby chain smoker with a dysfunctional family and a painful past. Supposedly he gains a moral education about this. Not only is it time-consuming, but also it's linked to yet another weird shift in tone, as the program suddenly turns religious, and preaches to us about damnation and the sanctity of life. We're told that some things are "worse than crimes... They're sins!" Yes, you will hear churchy choir music on the soundtrack. Rather hypocritically, the movie bashes someone for assisting a suicide, while approving another suicide as a noble attempt to help someone.
Our bad boy reporter even acts like a priest all of a sudden, and scolds a woman in a scene filmed as if it's a Catholic confession behind a screen! Whatever points Mike has, the fact that he lectures her so soon after (unrelatedly) she had been raped left a bad taste in my mouth.