Ben & Arthur

0/4

Starring: Sam Mraovich, Jamie Brett Gabel, Michael Haboush, Bill Hindley

Not Rated (contains violence and language)

For a while, "Ben & Arthur" was lurking at the bottom (or is that top?) of iMDb's Bottom 10 list.  Not that that necessarily means anything ("The Shawshank Redemption" at number one of all time?  Really?), but still. That should have been warning enough.  But for reasons I cannot explain, my curiosity was piqued.  I decided to watch it, despite the vicious reviews it got on iMDb.  I should have heeded the warnings of those unfortunate souls who have suffered through Sam Mraovich's travesty.  This is the worst movie I have ever seen.

Yup, you read that right.  The worst.  Never have I ever seen a movie that made me physically ill.

Boring, a failure in every department, and occasionally downright offensive, "Ben & Arthur" is truly a dreadful piece of filmmaking.  I had to pause the film frequently to stop the pain (by comparison, I only paused "Soul Plane" once).  There's little of any redeeming value in all of the 85 minutes that I'll never get back.  The only piece of praise I can offer is that at least it's coherent.

Arthur (Mraovich) and Ben (Gabel) are two men who are deeply in love and want to get married.  But as they live in California, they cannot.  While they're trying to figure out how to get legally married, Arthur's fanatically Christian brother, Victor (Haboush), plots how to save Arthur from eternal damnation by any means possible.

The acting is terrible.  No one feels comfortable on camera, and it's all too easy to see that they're acting.  It's as if Mraovich got a bunch of people from off the street and asked them if they wanted to be in a movie.  Arthur is a boring lead, and Mraovich can't act to save his life.  Ditto for Haboush, who veers between being merely bad and unspeakably awful.  Jamie Brett Gabel is the best of the main trio, although that's not saying much since in this mess he still stinks like dead fish.  The actor who comes closest to giving a legitimate performance is Bill Hindley, who plays Victor's virulently homophobic pastor.  He actually commands a bit of attention whenever he's on screen.  That being said, this subplot is kind of distasteful.  I believe that there are definitely some people who are this homophobic, but the way the character is written and this subplot is handled makes it seem like a stereotype.  The two Christian characters are completely evil and show no positive traits.  They exist to create conflict and their whole lives seem to revolve around "curing" homosexuals.

But what's really striking is how the film looks.  "Ben & Arthur" just looks bad.  It appears to have been filmed on a camcorder with and its attached microphone (the sound fades in and out at times), and it has a grainy and sterile look.  I've seen home movies that looked better.

There are times when this movie approaches being hilariously bad.  The characters are dumber than dumb.  For example, Ben's wife Tammy (Julie Belknap) hasn't realized that her husband is living with another man for the past three years even though she and Ben had been married for 5 years.  Does she have a brain?  There are also some scenes where the guns are obviously fake, and so is the gore.  I admit to laughing at this and the horrible acting, but unlike campy movies like "Tale of the Mummy," I was laughing in condescension; I got no enjoyment from it. 

Since he wears 8 hats (actor, director, writer, producer, casting director, cinematographer, composer, editor), the majority of the blame has to lay at the feet of Sam Mraovich.  He hasn't got a clue about anything that is necessary to make a movie.  Dramatic tension, acceptable performances, pacing, atmosphere...they're all in the lowest nadir one can think of.  Even the music, which sounds like something out of a dance club, is awful.  How is it that there are so many filmmakers out there who are struggling when morons like Sam Mraovich get projects this bad green-lighted?  Didn't anyone have the common sense to realize that there's no way any movie with a script this bad could be anything other than a disaster?

Although I have tried, words cannot express how awful this movie is.  Next to this, "Belly" is looking a lot better.  Hell, even "Moonrise Kingdom" is good next to this.  Better post that last sentence to Facebook guys, cause I won't be saying it again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Desert Flower

2/4 Starring: Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson Rated R for Some Violent Content, A Scene of Sexuality and Language The problem with "Desert Flower" is not that Waris Dirie's story isn't suited for the cinematic treatment or that the actress playing her isn't acceptable.  The problem is that director Sherry Hormann doesn't do a good job of telling it.  This is a poorly focused film that can't decide what it wants to be about or what it wants to say. As is the case with many a true story, the life of Waris Dirie is too amazing to be made up by a Hollywood screenwriter.  This woman fled an arranged marriage as a child, spent years as a servant to a Somali diplomat in England, survived on the streets, and was discovered by a fashion photographer while working as a janitor.  Then she became a supermodel and UN Ambassador in the fight against female genital mutilation. Waris experienced a lot in her life.  Telling it all in a...
Read more

The Road

3.5/4 Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron Rated R for Some Violence, Disturbing Images and Language "The Road" has to be the most downbeat, depressing and cynical movie I've ever seen.  That's not meant as a criticism, but a fact.  This is a tough movie to get through, but not a chore.  Those who venture in will find their time well spent, albeit not in a necessarily pleasant way.  Then again, if a movie is based off a novel by Cormac McCarthy, "pleasant" isn't a word one would hope to be used to describe it. The film takes place after the world has ended.  How it happened is not explained because it doesn't matter.  But any hope of the Earth recovering from what happened has long since gone.  A man (Mortensen) and his son (Smit-McPhee) are travelling together, trying to "get to the coast."  There are few people left, although considering what many are doing with the goal of survival, that's a good thing...
Read more

My Left Foot

 2/4 Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, Alison Whelan Rated R (probably for Language and Brief Violence) "My Left Foot" feels like one of those movies designed to win Oscars and nothing else.  In fact, it did win two Oscars for the immortal Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker, but apart from their strong work, there's not much else to remember about this movie.  It's well-acted, but all in all it's pretty dull. Christy Brown (Day-Lewis) is getting recognized for his work in order to raise money for the disabled.  Despite being a talented artist and writer, Christy is not the ideal candidate for the job.  He's an alcoholic jerk who makes no secret of his lust for women nor is he above using his disability to manipulate people into doing what he wants.  Interspersed with his attempts to seduce a woman tasked with looking after him while he awaits his entrance are vignettes from his childhood.  Most notably how his mothe...
Read more