Passion Play (2011)
Average Rating: 2.3/10
Reviews Counted: 32
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 31
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 2.6/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 9
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.1/5
User Ratings: 2,499
My Rating
Movie Info
A terrific cast will hold you spellbound in PASSION PLAY, a one of a kind seductive thriller from Mitch Glazer, the screenwriter of The Recruit. The last thing washed-up jazz musician Nate Pool (Academy Award (R)-nominee Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler) wanted to do was betray sinister gangster Happy Shannon (Academy-Award (R)-nominee Bill Murray, Lost in Translation). But it may be the last thing he does unless he can deliver Lily (Megan Fox, Transformers), a beautiful and mysterious carnival
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Cast
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Mickey Rourke
Nate, Nate Pool, Nate P... -
Megan Fox
Lily -
Bill Murray
Happy Shannon -
Kelly Lynch
Harriett -
Rhys Ifans
Sam -
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All Critics (32) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (1) | Rotten (31) | DVD (2)
This underworld fairy tale is so soggy and sentimental it's like a new genre: Hallmark noir.
Top CriticThe net effect is as if someone had set out to imitate a David Lynch movie without ever having seen one, or as if it had been directed by Wim Wenders (which is approximately the same thing).
"It's like a movie," someone says at some point. Yeah, like one. But not quite.
Conjuring magic, it goes abracadabra and snaps its fingers, but nothing happens.
You can do worse than a movie that features Megan Fox stripped down to her tattoos and Bill Murray as a pinstriped gangster who says things like, "Kill him and bring her back here."
Every now and then a movie's awfulness rises to the level of mystery. How did it get produced? Did anyone try to save the filmmaker from himself?
This often risible mood piece stars Megan Fox as a circus sideshow attraction who has actual angel wings growing out of her back. Rather than doing the sensible thing and joining the X-Men, she instead decides to make out with Mickey Rourke. Go figure.
full review at Movies for the Masses
Perhaps it's needless to say, but Rourke and Fox are a thoroughly mismatched screen couple, who exude zero screen chemistry with one another.
A vanity project from successful Hollywood screenwriter Mitch Glazer, this film should really be much funnier than it is. Oh, it's not a comedy, by the way. Not at all.
Peculiarly bad. It's one of those total misfires that wanders so far off the track that you're left scratching your head.
One of the funniest most pretentious art house flicks of the year...
There's undeniable entertainment value in accidental absurdity, but Passion Play strikes a note of delirium that's downright painful to process.
The very definition of a cinematic curiosity: a movie that seems almost too strange to exist.
Mickey Rourke recently made headlines for dubbing Passion Play "a terrible movie," a proclamation that's ultimately most notable for its understatement.
Black Swan meets Water For Elephants, sort of. And is Mickey Rourke's male cougar character's obsession with his leading lady's wings in this post-mortem noir, possibly suspect intimations of either bestiality or necrophilia? Who cares.
Despite a gorgeous poster, a beautiful object of affection and cult-worthy actors, Passion Play fails to transform from a poetic pet project into a fully realized film.
From the cheesy score to the nonsensical plot to the half-asleep performances, Passion Play is a snooze.
Screenwriter Mitch Glazer's directing debut is a romantic fable about love, redemption and exquisitely art-directed squalor whose evident sincerity is overwhelmed by its utter ridiculousness.
You almost wonder if the whole thing isn't just one big campy joke.
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May 6, 2011:
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Nate's Grade: D