The Lunatic

When I saw this movie about 10 years ago, oh my gosh! I had to laugh and like fellow IMDb user gold167 said, jokes, jokes, jokes. It was so funny. What made it funnier was that my brothers got a tape and watched it over and over again until the tape got exhausted! And the one-liners! Oh boy, I literally cried laughing when I saw this. This is one of the best Jamaican films I've ever seen! If you want a good comedy fest, rent this movie wherever it's available. Trust me, it'll have you on the edge of your seat. One of my cousins actually p**sed himself laughing, that is how funny it was.

What a load of crap!!This movie was so DREADFUL that we switched it off after 15 painful minutes!! And it is so 'NOT' funny!! Its as boring as hell!! Extremely bad acting... just a cheap 5th rate movie!! Watching grass grow is more interesting! How on earth this got a 6.6 rating I don't know? It should be a 1.1 rating! The German woman in it looks like a large man in drag! PLEASE don't watch this! And those who say its very funny don't have much of a life. HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE!! What a waste of me and my family's time. Why I have to waste 10 lines of text just for this review to be published here is ridiculous. They should have kept this in Jamaica only, as it seems to amuse them there.

If you've spent time in the Caribbean, this film is laughs from beginning to end. Very well done compared to the other films based on life in the West Indies (i.e. The Mighty Quinn, The Harder They Come). Wonderful, twisted humor, and if you're paying attention, valid social commentary.

First seen this movie 10 years ago in 1992 , the film made me laugh been searching for years to get this film. If your familiar with the Caribbean then watch this film, Aloysius (Paul Campbell) plays everytin so cool but yet with jokes flung inna de film. Bare laughter one of the best comedy films me ever seen especially outta JA

My review was written in February 1992 after watching the film at a Manhattan screening room.

"The Lunatic" is an annoyingly cute fable that seems to have popped from a time capsule dating back to the aggressively life-affirming era of "King of Hearts" and "Harold and Maude". Jamaican-lensed feature's chances to win similar cult audiences are poor.

Novelist-scripter Anthony C. Winkler turns a colorful phrase but billboards all his themes unsubtly in this tale of an innocent black lad Aloysius (Paul Campbell in a winning interpretation) who talks to flora and fauna.

Everyone brands him al lunatic, but visiting German photographer Inga (British thesp Julie T. Wallace) makes him her love slave. Soon a menage a trois is set up when she takes a fancy to a butcher (Carl Bradshaw).

As one of many recent films with an interracial plot, pic defuses this controversial sexual theme by casting the gargantuan actress Wallace. Best known in the title role of Philip Saville's 1986 TV miniseries "Life and Loves of a She-Devil", grotesqueness and character's need to dominate men shifts the focus from titillation to satire.

Winkler pokes fun at race relations, reincarnation and respect for the Queen (a rude argument over whether the British monarch relieves herself like normal folk should rule out any royal performance for the pic).

Final reels turn unconvincingly melodramatic when Inga gets her two black friends to help rob the local bigshot landowner (Reggie Carter), ending in violence and an idiotic trial.

Debuting director Lol Creme, who has made many music videos with Kevin Godley, fails to keep a lid on the pic's cuteness. Best effects here are by Campbell as the naive hero and Carter as the oddly sympathetic major domo. Surprise is that the booming voice of Campbell's best friend, a tree, is provided by Carter as well.

Unlike similarly proportioned German thesp Mairanne Sagebrecht of Percy Adlon films (perhaps the only other well-known actress who could personify Inga), Wallace brings zero warmth to her role and quickly becomes a mere caricature.

Tech credits seem on the cheap side while a catchy reggae music score is de rigueur for Islands product.