The Amazing Johnathan Documentary

This documentary is a trick. A complicated truck with plot twists around every corner. Watch with an open mind and prepare to be entertained.

Spoiler Alert: This is not a documentary about the Amazing Jonathan, this is a movie about a film maker's attempt to make a documentary about the Amazing Johnathan. People are giving this movie low reviews because it feels like a bait and switch when halfway through the film the focus changes from what we assume are the Amazing Jonathan last days to the director's Ben Berman's plight as a documentary maker. If you go into the film with the understanding that this is not a film about the Amazing Jonathan, you will enjoy the film much much more. The producers would have done a much better job if they had just named it Not The Amazing Johnathan Documentary.

What do you do when you're making a documentary and someone with more funding comes in and scoops your subject? You put them on blast and share the surreal experience of being boned for the world to see. The first documentary (actually the 4th to begin...WTF?!?) is straightforward and not really special, showing Johnathan's career, friendships, and struggles with his fatal diagnosis that he has outlived. This documentary starts with the same motives and then has to find a way to coexist, knowing that it can no longer maintain its original intent. Much like a documentary should, it captures real life, though at times is forcing itself along through prompting. There's a point toward the end where the story of disaster takes a hard turn that's a bit cringeworthy as the director himself admits, he made lots of mistakes in this effort. Not the horrible piece of trash that the rest of these reviewers are making it out to be.

Much of this doc *is* very interesting on the surface. The story of a terminally ill magician who likes to smoke crack? Sign me up! And, perhaps, its meta commentary on the documentary artform and its significance among a deluge of reality-based content is the most interesting element. But the climactic confrontation interview between the principles (director and subject) comes off poorly, and derails all emotional force in the final act. Both men feel like they're acting and neither are actors; the only thing that's clear is that they desperately want the latter to be true. The audience doesn't know what to believe, and not in an interesting, mysterious way. It's rare that "too cute for its own good" is too cute for me, but this one hit that (unfortunate) sweet spot.

Tantamount to walking into the 'Hall of Mirrors' the local {annual} state fair, usually held early fall, in virtually every hometown-city USA, and then, w great expectation & abject certainty, spending the next 15-20 minutes, in search of a common-denominator, (before that inevitable carnival-barker appears & shouts.... This Way Folks......This way to The Exit!

Admittedly, although there were a number of jumping off spots, littered throughout this film & met w the temptation to act accordingly... There exists (in all candor), an intrinsic & worthwhile redeeming value, for those that, make the approx., 90-minute time-investment {e.g. Leaving w a deeper understanding & compassion, for experiencing & connecting w humanity}. ...No Foolin'.