Irreverent and often sidesplitting satire of Jesus Christ movies that will probably offend some catholics, including many social comments with tongue-in-cheek. Religious and ironic parable about intolerance focuses on Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield), a Jew in Roman-occupied Judea. Struggling to find a better life, Clarence is captivated by the power of the rising Messiah and soon risks everything to carve a path to a divine existence. After joining up with an anti-Roman political organization, Clarence, a false savior is mistaken for a prophet , and becomes a peculiar Messiah. Along the way, Clarence meets several biblical characters, such as: John the Baptist (David Oyelowo) , Barabbas (Omar Sy), Judas Iscariot (Micheal Ward), Simon the Zealot (Daniel Adeosun), Matthew (Marcus Fraser), Andrew (Claudius Peters), Joseph (Brian Bovell), Virgin Mary (Alfre Woodard ), Mary Magdalene (Teyana Taylor) and even Jesus himself (Nicholas Pinnock) . Then Clarence's detained by Romans and judged by Pontius Pilates (James McAvoy) and he cannot convince them he is not a Messiah who wants to free his land from the oppression of Rome.
Hilarious film about a false and resourceful Messiah who in order to liquidate his debts that he owes to an evil enemy, he pretends to be a preacher and perform miracles with people, and to this end he gathers a group of followers to deceive and defraud the naive acolytes. Filmmaker and musician Jeymes Samuel, known as 'The Bullitts', directs this dramatic comedy that reinterprets Biblical cinema. With a certain parallelism with ¨Monty Python's Life of Brian¨, it mixes the irreverent with the sacred, having as protagonist a rogue and indebted young man who, in Jerusalem in the year 33 AD, pretends to be a new Messiah to get rid of his debt. The film is divided into three chapters or books in which the typography of the titles makes a nod to great epic productions such as "The Ten Commandments" or ¨Ben-Hur¨. The main flaw of the film is that it doesn't know what to expect. Sometimes it's a Blaxploitation comedy that turns into a drama, then unexpectedly it becomes a musical or a spoof movie.
Under the excuse of a cultural nuance, and in a luxurious wrapper, in reality, it is nothing more or less than a typical film made to denigrate Catholic religious beliefs. Thus the story insists on mocking and crushing the Catholic religion, apparently the only religion that can be attacked, laughing on its conventions and rites, filling it with blasphemies, transgressions and lack of delicacy that I suppose must have deeply humiliated Catholics. Of course, the cowardly writer/director does not dare to implicate or undermine other religions, logically because of the fateful consequences that this would bring.
In this film titled The Book of Clarence (2023) the wonderful and colorful photography from Rob Hardy stands out, this is a prestigious cameraman who has directed successful and notorious films such as: ¨Ex-Machina¨, ¨Civil War¨, ¨Mission impossiple: Fallout¨, ¨Annihilation¨, ¨Shadow Dancer¨, ¨Broken¨, ¨Blitz¨, among others. Being filmed on location in Jerusalem and Matera, Basilicata, Italy, where another much better Biblical film was previously shot: ¨Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ¨. The motion picture was mediocrely written/directed by Jeymes Samuel, who even composed the musical scoree, as well . Samuel previusly made two films : "The Harder They Fall" (2021) and ¨They Die by Dawn¨ (2013). Rating: 4.5/10. ¨The Book of Clarence¨results to be an average, downright senseless comedy that failed irrevocably at the world box office.
