Ninguém Brinca com Jesus Quintana

I can tell You right away that if "The Jesus Rolls" wasn't masquerading as one "The Big Lebowski" spin-off & promising bowling goods on every one of its posters, audience's response would be at least slightly better. I certainly don't know why, but John Turturro went and inserted his iconic character Jesus Quintana in the world of the writer Bertrand Blier - this recipe couldn't have ended in a justified and crowd-pleasing spin-off. And, of course, it didn't.

Despite "The Jesus Rolls" being quite the mess, it's a rather amusing one. The few redeeming qualities include a top tier, doing-their-best, entertaining cast & contrastive, colorful cinematography. Everyone, from John Turturro to Bobby Cannavale to Audrey Tautou, to minor appearances by Jon Hamm and Susan Sarandon, manage to season the movie with some charisma and humor. The biggest problem of all is the marketing device itself, the very fact that this is a "The Big Lebowski" spin-off. Despite Turturro having delivered the memorable character of Jesus 22 years ago, he has made a mistake by choosing to brutally insert him in a story which just doesn't vibe with what a "Big Lebowski" spin-off could've been or should've been. The character himself is still awesome in the hands of Turturro, but he delivers maybe only the half of the amazement he did the first time. "The Jesus Rolls", adapting a lot of Bertrand Blier's material from "Les Valseuses" or "Going Places" which was (still is?) this movies working title, before "The Jesus Rolls". So, based on the aforementioned source material, "The Jesus Rolls" cfeatures a more than fair bit of sex, sexual jokes, sexual vibes and, well, just a lot of sleaze. It's not bad though, it's just that it's the feel of Bertrand Blier and not the brothers Coens. To top it all off, I'll break to You this - the only bowling you'll get to see in "The Jesus Rolls" is in a three minute long scene. That's it, folks.

There's a singular huge flaw behind the filmmakers decisions for "The Jesus Rolls", it's not what it should've been (spiritually a Coens movie) and it's also not what it could've been (a rightfully marketed movie based on the works of Berntrand Blier), but at the end of the day "The Jesus Rolls" is an amusing time killer at the very least. My rating: 5/10

(Flash Review)

The viewer is brought into a snippet of time from when The Jesus is released from prison on a sketchy charge, referenced in The Big Lebowski, as he and his buddy bum around hanging out with a couple older prostitutes, 'using them' and committing petty theft. I can't say there was much of a plot, more of flushing out the character and his world. There are of course a couple bowling scenes and his famous bowling ball lick; not something you'd be doing during COVID19. This severely lacked the level of laughs or witty dialog that The Big Lebowski had not to mention a core story point. I am wondering if the producers will flush out the back stories of Maude, Knox Harrington or the Carpet Pisser. ;-) This was not written by Coen Brothers and it shows even though it tried.

We all loved Big Lebowski. It was a masterpiece. And The Jesus was such a great little part of it. But it doesn't warrant this debacle. I could waste your time with long-winded, yammering examples of what's wrong with it, but you can probably already tell. Just watch Lebowski again. Unless you're like me, you haven't seen it for awhile. Personally, I just finished watching it, to cleanse myself of this. Great cast, bad movie.

This is enjoyable to watch even if it is pointless. Jesus Quintana is a character with multi-dimensional creepiness, deserving of a film like this to achieve the fullest expression.

If there was any reason for wanting to see this movie was the opportunity to experience an additional Big Lebowski-like entry, or anything close to that quality. That movie is something really american, but in a unique way, something really masterfully clever and stupid at the same time, where every moment beheld maximum focus on detail told in a really pleasantly paced narrative...

This... is nothing like that... this movie is plain stupid and paced terribly. It's just another american movie with forced sketches, humor, everything. Nothing unique about it. It has that potential of going into something artsy in the second half, but it's just doesn't get it what made Big Lebowski big. Torturo and his fellow writers have no idea at all, and should have left this project alone as a postponed screenplay locked in the shed somewhere deep in the garage...

If you want to see a Big Lebowski movie, you won't get it here... if you want to see A movie you will probably appreciate something about this, but that's just like watching any other slapstick B-flick. Totally disappointing experience...

I don't recommend this to anybody actually, just watch the classic instead of this.