Jesus of Montreal

Having recently (ish) watched both The Barbarian Invasions and The Decline of the American Empire by the same director, it seemed the right time to give this old movie a go. I loved The Barbarian Invasions; I found it really quite stunning, and I'm glad I watched it before The Decline of the American Empire, even though it is the sequel and should have been watched after. Why glad? Because Decline suffers the same problem as Jesus of Montreal: looking old before its time. And of course, movies of that period (mid- to late 1980s) often also suffer from what I call Michael Mann syndrome, with terrible terrible incidental music à la Miami Vice. Indeed, I had to reach for my air guitar on more than one occasion.

That said, Jesus of Montreal was quite fascinating; at least for the first 90 minutes. It started to drag a little then. I was still going with the flow, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed Wife reaching for Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide to check the running time; I knew right then that we'd lost her. Still, as I say, good till then. The ending not so great. And a couple of scenes just weren't that well directed. In one in particular, the two actors seemed as though they were playing in totally different films, so incompatible with one another were their performances.

A good film with a duff ending.