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Unrateable. An impenetrable spiral of self-absorption which for all its technical ineptitude manages to leave an impression if for no other reason than your certainty that it must be on purpose. Succeeds in being politically prescient in fits and starts, mostly because it throws all Dylan's half-formed thoughts at the wall and ensures some of them stick—at its best this plays like a slapdash prototype of Southland Tales, only superficially skating over societal collapse and balkanization but doing so in a way that rings true when so little has changed. Police squads roaming the streets? Government efforts to benefit the sick that are only feeble PR stunts propped up by gangsters? Threats to trample prisoners with wild elephants in football stadiums? Say it ain't so.

Nearly all the performers are at sea, but Goodman plays his heart out, almost single-handedly holding the piece together through bluster and his correct instinct to deliver his dialogue as if he knows it's horseshit where everyone else tries to take it straight and ends up looking embarrassed. Ed Harris shows up in blackface. Val Kilmer legitimately forgets his lines for like ten seconds while the camera keeps rolling. The third act twist is that Bob Dylan's folk singer is the son of a dictator who looks a good twenty years younger than him. Jeff Bridges gets beaten to death by Blind Lemon Jefferson's guitar.

In short, exactly what you'd expect from a late-period Bob Dylan movie, for all that implies. Not good, not even all that interesting, but your suspicion that the central figure knows this and managed to rook the BBC into doing his bidding keeps you going.

Last edited by Abbie (2020-07-20 06:09:47)