I’ll tell you right now that the flaming bowling-ball metaphor doesn’t work. It looks Ed Wood-y.
Until last summer I hadn’t realized that John Turturro’s remake of Bertrand Blier‘s Going Places (’74) and The Jesus Rolls (Screen Media, 2.28) are one and the same. Screen Media will distribute Turturro’s three-year-old film (which has no real connection to The Big Lebowski) late next month.
Great title, but I’ve never understood how a flick about an older trio of “sexually depraved misfits” (played by Turturro, Bobby Cannavale and Audrey Tautou) could work. The French-made original was about reckless youth frolicking in counter-culture upheaval — a couple of amoral hooligans (Gerard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere) and the various adventures that befall them.
Substitute these guys with 40something actors in the 21st Century and it’s…I don’t know what but on some level it feels out of time. Especially with today’s #MeToo scrutiny. Pic costars Pete Davidson, Jon Hamm. Susan Sarandon (in the Jeanne Moreau role) and Sonia Braga.
You want it straight? Turturro, Cannavale and Tatou are simply too old to play Depardieu, Dewaere and Miou Miou. You have to be in your teens or 20s to play careless roustabouts. You can’t even get away with this kind of thing in your 30s.
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