Il vangelo secondo Clarence

My wife and I caught The Book of Clarence (2023) in theaters last night. The storyline follows two weed dealers in Jerusalem during the time of Christ, facing financial hardships and attempting to become apostles or create their own Messiah to solve their problems.

Directed by Jeymes Samuel (The Harder They Fall), the film stars LaKeith Stanfield (Knives Out), RJ Cyler (White Boy Rick), Alfre Woodard (12 Years a Slave), James McAvoy (Split), Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), and Teyana Taylor (A Thousand and One).

This movie has a fantastic premise and a captivating start, especially in the first three quarters. The authentic attire and settings, along with stellar performances from the cast, contribute to the film's charm. The comedic elements are brilliant, reminiscent of a biblical Half Baked. Memorable scenes like the "get out" and "virgin" conversations, slap scenes, and baptism provide comedic gold. The inclusion of an '80s/'90s retro dance sequence adds to the enjoyment. Unfortunately, the conclusion takes a deep and serious turn, causing a drastic mood shift that dulls the movie and leaves the ending feeling flat.

In conclusion, The Book of Clarence offers enough worthwhile content to make it a must-see, but it falters at times, preventing it from achieving classic status. I'd give it a score of 6-6.5/10 and recommend it once.

Before I go negative, I have to give major props to LaKeith Stanfield. His performances are always convincing. And this is no exception. He kills it. I said wow multiple times. I think he's reached star status. The rest of the cast does a good job as well.

As for the movie overall, it's not actively bad in any way. A lot of it just feels off. The story is a bit clunky. Some of the jokes land while others don't. I'm not really attached to any characters other than the lead.

I just wasn't into it. I wasn't engaged and I had difficulty getting through it. Maybe it's just not for me.

I look forward to LaKeith's next project.

(1 viewing, 2/6/2024)

Clarence, a non-believer in the messiah Jesus and a debtor, is willing to do anything for the woman he loves and his mother. With the deadline for his debt fast approaching, Clarence decides to do something drastic. Clarence declares himself a messiah and travels around Jerusalem, spreading his word of knowledge and performing "miracles." The possible conflict with the Romans and God comes with the success of being a messiah.

This film is part satire, part Biblical re-enactment, and part alternate history. The satire comes from applying modern ideas, concepts, and solutions in ancient times. The Biblical re-enactment comes from many of the people from the Bible are characters in this movie and are portrayed the same way. The alternate history take is how Jesus is shown compared to other Biblical films. The movie has comedy, morality, drama, spirituality, and aspects of Christianity. The movie is broken up into parts and is a good length. This is a decent watch for anyone willing to approach history, religion, and spirituality with an open mind.

This movie was being recommended on Netflix several times and I finally gave in and watched it.

I only know regular things about religion just as much as anyone else, I am not really familiar with anything more than this. At the end of the movie, I just found myself confused. I think the issue lies with the audience of this movie.

I am a casual movie fan who likes to watch various films whenever I have time. I am not an expert on anything specific, so I cannot speak on depths of knowledge.

I feel like you can only understand this movie properly if you are accustomed to religion to a certain degree. Apart from that, the pacing of this movie was confusing. I felt like some moments had too much spotlight while other scenes didn't get enough details.

Are we expected to know things about religion in order to get what is the purpose of the movie? I mean sure I have a general idea but the execution is so messy even I am having a hard time coming up with an opinion.

When I saw that Samuel was following up The Harder They Fall with a Black Biblical satire, I got pretty excited. I actually don't mind sacrilege or reinterpretation. Life of Brian? Blessed are the cheesemakers. Last Temptation of Christ? Other than Keitel's accent, I was onboard. Anyway, the problem with this one isn't the religious satire. It's that it tries to succeed at a few too many things. It wants to be an effective satire, drama, and romance all at once. It is hard enough to make a movie like Leap of Faith that cuts across all those genres, but doing it with a story that takes place at the time of Jesus might be just a bit too ambitious. In order to make everything work, the movie rushes through multiple genres (sometimes in a single scene) trying to fit it all in. As a result, the cast nails it and Samuel directs it well...but I still never quite settled in enough to care.