The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Starring: Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, Olga Kurylenko, Stellan Skarsgaard, Joana Ribeiro, Jordi Molla
Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A film director (Adam Driver) gets caught up in a surreal adventure when a man (Jonathan Pryce) who believes he's Don Quixote mistakes him for Sancho Panza

Review:

Tim: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is one of the all-time great examples of a film that suffered from development hell. Terry Gilliam worked on and off on trying to get the film made for 29 years. That's extraordinary. I went into this feeling a bit surprised that the movie existed at all, a testament to Gilliam's tenacity. It's impressive that he finally got to make his movie. And, after all that time, those decades in development, he delivered a fairly lackluster film. That's the thing that really angers me about this. I've heard about his attempts to make this movie for many years, and this is what he ends up with. It might be that expectations were too high for this to ever be a great movie, but man, it's hard to feel anything but disappointment in this effort.

I place nearly all the blame on Gilliam. He co-wrote it, he was the director, and he delivered a slightly below average film. Here's the thing that too few people realize about Gilliam- he's not a good director. Sure, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a classic film, but the guy's resume is lackluster. He shouldn't even be a big name. This is another poor effort from an overrated director. Honestly, if you had three decades to think about making a movie, you'd hope it would be better than this. It feels like an effort from an inexperienced director. There's no sense of mastery, no expertise in this film. It's an okay movie, but we deserved so much more.

Speaking of people who deserved more, I feel for Adam Driver. He takes the lead role here and he gives an incredibly strong performance. Driver is such an excellent actor and he was well cast here. He shows a range of emotion and he sells this ludicrous journey his character goes on. The movie would have been far worse without Driver in the lead role. This movie might be a frustrating mess to me, but I applaud Driver for his engaging performance. You also have to give credit to Jonathan Pryce. Pryce is such an underrated actor. His performance here is remarkable- he plays a man who believes he's Don Quixote exactly like Don Quixote believed he was a knight. He hits all the right notes and balances the performance well- you root for this crazy guy, you sympathize with him. His performance is endearing and it was hard to take your eyes off him. Driver and Pryce worked so well together. They were great fun to see together. Olga Kurylenko, Stellan Skarsgaard, and Jordi Molla all added good supporting performances as well. The cast definitely isn't the issue here.

The problem with this movie is the script. It's just all over the place. The story doesn't feel focused, which results in an unnecessarily long run time of 2 hours, 12 minutes. These characters aren't given enough detail for us to really care about them. Any interest we have is stretched beyond the breaking point. By the end of the film, I just wanted it to be over. Sure, Gilliam does a few interesting things with this story about a story. This isn't a terrible movie, it's just a woefully inadequate one. It offers nothing really new, nothing all that compelling. It apes a story that has been in the public consciousness for many decades (and for the record, I have read Cervantes' book). It doesn't offer anything new when the whole point of the film was to do that. It just feels like a slight variation of what we already know.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote isn't a terrible movie and it might be worth seeing for the performances alone. Unfortunately, it needed a better script and a more talented director. This is a movie that should have been a triumphant feat. Gilliam should have been doing victory laps for getting this movie made. This isn't a good movie and it didn't make much of a splash at all.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6



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