Mad Detective (2007)

This detective really is mad, a refreshing change from "mad" detectives that are merely quirky or emotionally haunted. He throws himself down some stairs in a suitcase and then Van Goghs himself to set the stage.

That's not to say that this mad detective isn't also emotionally haunted. He talks to his wife, who isn't actually there, and everybody presumes is dead. They presume that until the actual ex-wife shows up and frustratedly informs everybody that the detective is mad, a fact which they had already clearly deduced.

The mad detective doesn't actually work for the police anymore, perhaps due to cutting off his ear at a work event, but one of the determined young detectives unofficially drags him out of retirement to get his assistance on a missing cop case with no leads.

The detective's particular type of madness is seeing other people's "inner personalities" as actual humans. Most people have one, maybe two, inner personalities. The mad detective gets very interested when one of the other people involved in the case has a whopping seven inner personalities. There's a whole posse of highly diverse actors and actresses on set whenever that guy is around, which is often, and great fun is had.

The mad detective makes a big mad mess of everything, the young detective runs around trying to clean it up, and everybody gets sucked into a complex whirlwind of lies and deceptions and hallucinations. By the time he "solves" the case – simply by digging a grave and burying himself deep underground in the woods for a while – nobody believes a word he says. Of course, he has actually solved the case.

It's further hinged on a why-do-good-cops-go-bad theme, and in the wake of the tragically handled conclusion, our morally righteous young cop finds himself on the wrong side of the very same decision.

Aside from slightly sloppy and confusing editing during action sequences, it's reasonably well-made, with the highlights being our mad detective's acting and the enjoyable soundtrack of xylophones and jew harps and various other jazzy little orchestral ditties.

The detective film is an overwrought genre, and the superhumanly brilliant detective is the most overdone of subgenres, and TV is overflowing with every conceivable twist on what oddball characteristics such a detective might have, so it is pleasantly surprising to find one with a take that is both unique and compellingly interesting and fun to watch.