The Long Goodbye (1973)

Robert Altman's take on the world of Raymond Chandlers's infamous detective Philip Marlowe is less an adaptation of his 1953 novel and more of a deconstruction of the genre as a whole, updating it to a (then) modern day setting and befitting it with Altman's typical disdain and derision of the wealthy and immoral, not to mention his shunning of typical Hollywood cliché.
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Elliott Gould steps into the detective's shoes here, replacing the character's typically hard boiled edge with more of an affable detachment. He still drinks and smokes his way through the film, and is efficient enough to conduct his investigations into the apparent murder / suicide committed by one of his friends, but his laid back charm and bemusement ('it's alright with me' becomes something of a catchphrase of his directed at various people throughout the film) lend him distance in a very deliberate way.
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As a piece of cinema the Long Goodbye is often very good, the problem though is that Altman can't help being Altman, he is seemingly unable to leave his stylistic tendencies to one side and just serve the story. He clearly here has little interest in the central mystery, instead devoted large portions of the film to slow moving conversational scenes, his love of dialogue and human behaviour here feels out of place at times and as such the film has no great sense of urgency. The detachment of Gould's Marlowe extends outwards as well, Altman's camera roams around the scenes, focusing on the details but languid, his trademark overlapping dialogue and use of diegetic sound take you out of the moment more often than they add to the film.
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As a statement on the genre it might well work, snubbing its nose at the notions of honour and chivalry as usually portrayed. Here Marlowe is dogged and persistent, but there's little nobility about him especially at the end. As one of the police officers remarks early on, he's a wise-ass, but not the typically endearing kind. Here he exists to provoke and annoy, seemingly unflappable and desiring a quieter life that never quite finds him.
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There is a lot of dissect and take away from The Long Goodbye, but it does also work on a surface level. It's just that a lot of the odd touches, the random acts of shocking violence, the cryptic dialogue and bizzare situations (a late film scene where a gangster forces all those in his office to strip, including a young and, at the time, unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger really stands out for this) detract from the story, rather than help it. Altman was a gifted film-maker with a very specific point of view and style, here it seems that this does more harm than good, by looking down on a genre he is simultaneously engaging in it rings as a hollow exercise and prevents the film from coming together as a coherent whole.