What we make of the first Jesus Rolls trailer doesn’t have much to do with the fact that it’s in Spanish but it does have something to do with the fact that it looks a bit nutty, just as you might expect from Jesus Quintana. If anyone was expecting anything else then they might need to go and watch The Big Lebowski again just to remember what Jesus was like and why a movie starring him might be kind of cuckoo to say the least. That’s not to say it won’t be interesting enough to get into and enjoy if you happen to like the character, since no matter what any media or opinion source says it’s going to be up to the individual to really decide if they like it or not. The buzz around this movie seems as though it was caused mostly by John Turturro since he was so excited to make it despite not being backed by the Coen brothers. Seriously, they had no intention of creating anything past The Big Lebowski and they weren’t into creating a spinoff of any sort. This is all Turturro and is going to be his baby entirely.
So far it looks like something that might have been better off existing on the fringe rather than being made into a big screen picture. Whether it does that well or not will have a lot to do with the fans and if they’re really going to bother believing that this movie is worth much. It does look as though it might be decent enough to watch since the cast features a number of people that fans love to watch and have invested in over the years. Christopher Walken, John Turturro, Bobby Cannavale, Susan Sarandon, Pete Davidson, and Jon Hamm are just several that appear in the movie and will no doubt give it at least bit of juice that can possibly carry it over the hump. Some folks like Zack Sharf of IndieWire seem to think that it will do quite well. If it sails over that mark then so be it since there’s no real telling what people are going to like no matter the trends or patterns that happen to come and go throughout the years. The Jesus Rolls at this time looks like it could be released and forgotten with a couple of months at best, but I could be wrong since it could become a cult classic much like the movie that spawned it.
You could say that John Turturro was born to play oddball characters because he does look kind of goofy depending on how he has to appear in various movies. Honestly this guy has been in movies like You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Transformers, Miller’s Crossing, Hands of Stone, and various others and he’s had to dress up and act in a wide variety of ways that have been wildly different from the last. So it’s fair to say that he’s kind of odd and has made a living off of it just as much as he’s made a living off of drama, but in The Jesus Rolls it seems that he might actually make a few people uncomfortable and possibly make them wonder why they paid money to see it, but otherwise it might be enough to say ‘meh’ and just sit down to enjoy for a couple of hours.
Obviously it won’t all be about bowling, but that will be a big theme as it was for the character in TBL. It kind of has to be since if not for this then it’s possible we would never have been introduced to The Jesus. Some people might actually call that a win, but in the true tradition of cult classics people have picked their favorite characters and Jesus is one of them, for one reason or another. In truth he’s the kind of character that seems as though he might be someone you’d meet and decide to avoid unless you happened to find him charming somehow. The fact that Jesus’ back story is expanding based on an old French movie from the 70s seems to suggest that no one is really going to be able to predict just what’s coming. Zo from Okay Player seems to have an angle on what might happen. So far it would seem that Jesus will be making his way out of prison and will likely be looking to get into some sort of trouble once he’s out. It almost looks as though the movie is going to be largely formulaic in nature since it starts with the protagonist getting out of jail and needing to get something rolling in their life, which means that someone they know from somewhere, a relative, friend, or otherwise, will help them get back on their feet. From that point things kind of take one turn or another and depending on the movie it either starts to get serious or hilarious as events continue to unfold.
But that’s what it seems like might happen, at least for now.
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