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PASSION PLAY Send This Review to a Friend
When I interviewed Charlie Chaplin at his home in Switzerland about four years before he died, he said he always wanted to do a film about a woman who was half bird and half human. Illustrated, he flapped his arms like wings with agility that belied his advanced age. Alas, he never got to make the film, which might have become a classic. Instead we now get the sadly earthbound mess “Passion Play,” written and directed by Mitch Glazer and starring Megan Fox as a woman with wings.
If ever there were an example of a screenplay difficult to get made and pursued obsessively as a labor of love but one that should have been put back in a drawer and forgotten, this is it. An assortment of talent is wasted, including Fox, Mickey Rourke and Bill Murray.
Rourke as Nate Poole, looking his muscle-bound worst, survives an assassination attempt ordered by his gangster boss, Bill Murray as Happy Shannon. Nate develops a passion for the winged Lily (Fox), whom he absconds with from the carnival in which she is on display as a freak attraction. But Happy wants her to be shown off in his nightspot.
Plot developments ultimately lead to what is obviously meant to be a soaring, magical moment of freedom. But this is a film that fails to rise to anywhere near its lofty ambition. It is unlikely to fly very far, or put another way, have legs as well as wings. An Image Entertainment release.
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