Julian Schnabel has Oscar history with Before Night Falls from 2000 (in which Javier Bardem was up for lead Actor), 2007’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (four noms including Director), and At Eternity’s Gate (Willem Dafoe contending for Actor). His latest is the period piece drama In the Hand of Dante, sporting an eclectic cast headlined by Oscar Isaac and including Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Jason Momoa, Louis Cancelmi, Sophia Impacciatore, Franco Nero, and Al Pacino.
Stateside release is undetermined at press time. Despite the star power, distributors might not be lining up since this was generally considered one of the misfires at the Venice Film Festival. While some critics tipped their cap to its ambition, most say it wasn’t brimming with overall quality. The Rotten Tomatoes score is 35% and that should ensure Dante doesn’t fire up awards voters. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and it is apparently worth millions upon millions of votes in G20. A shot of now President Danielle Sutton (Viola Davis) rescuing a child during the Iraq War two decades earlier is what prompted her rise to the highest office in the land. This picture is not really about that. Instead it’s a run-of-the-mill streamer that fails to capitalize on its casting or location.
We first meet President Sutton in the throws of a domestic crisis. Her teenage daughter Serena (Marsai Martin) has slipped past the security perimeter of the White House to go clubbing and the media picked up on it. The mother-daughter drama shifts to South Africa as they travel there for the title summit. The First Gentleman (Anthony Anderson) and Serena’s little brother (Christopher Farrar) accompany.
Other members of the Presidential entourage included lead Secret Service agent Manny (Ramón Rodriguez) and the Treasury Secretary (Elizabeth Marvel) while the VP (Clark Gregg) is back stateside. If you don’t figure out who might not have POTUS’s best interests in mind early on, you might fail 101 in this cinematic universe.
Mercenary Edward Rutledge (Antony Starr of The Boys and Twitter meme fame) and his band of goons certainly aren’t on her side. They hijack the proceedings with a plan to crash the world economy while enriching themselves through cryptocurrency. Digital cash is a weirdly overarching theme in the screenplay that lists four writers. President Sutton is G20’ing to promote a plan helping African farmers via access to the technology. I half expected “Brought to you by bitcoin” to crawl across the bottom of the screen.
Unlucky for Rutledge, the Commander-in-Chief’s military background allows to her go all John McClane throughout the Cape Town hotel. Manny, the British Prime Minister (Douglas Hodge), South Korean First Lady (MeeWha Alana Lee, providing a couple moments of sorely needed humor), and IMF chair (Sabrina Impacciatore) become her new kitchen cabinet as they fight off the villains in kitchens and ballrooms. The First Family is separated from the matriarch with the crypto bandits on their trail.
You can’t blame Viola Davis for wanting her own 90s style shoot-em-up and she does bring a dignified presence to this junk food. Mr. Starr is also an appropriately unhinged antagonist. The problem is the execution. The fight sequences aren’t memorable and this doesn’t even bother to make use of its gorgeous South African setting (perhaps budget constraints were the culprit). This could’ve been set in a Wichita Ramada Inn when you really think about it.
The tired screenplay keeps returning to what made Sutton the leader of the free world with the photo. The picture’s backstory made me curious if a worthwhile movie could’ve been made about that. It might’ve been more worthwhile than the images we’re left with in G20.
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