Bob Dylan: musician; poet; horrendously bad actor. So it makes perfect sense that, in a movie featuring the likes of Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Luke Wilson, Christian Slater, Ed Harris and a host of other well-known leading men among its cast, the ever-expressionless Dylster gets top billing. Hmmmm.
Actually, Dylzo co-wrote the thing with director Larry Charles, so its perhaps not all that surprising that he nabbed the lead role after all. Come to think of it, it also sheds a bit of light on why the whole film is so relentlessly incoherent I mean, come on, how many of us have ever listened to a Bob Dylan song and genuinely had a clue what the guy was croaking on about?
Its the tale of Jack Fate, a grizzled, wrinkly, throaty old geetar-man who some see as a legend but really hasnt done much of any interest for a while (so a real stretch for Dyllers on the acting front, then). In an un-named revolution-struck nation, which were left to assume is probably supposed to be somewhere in South America, a couple of untrustworthy promoters (Goodman and Jessica Lange) arrange for him to be let out of prison to play a benefit concert and line their own pockets in the process.
What follows is self-indulgent, pretentious, and utterly, utterly pointless. A fine musician Dylan may be, but hes long-since completed the transition into outright parody of himself and here he mumbles and grumbles his way through a series of bizarre meetings with some even more bizarre characters. Aside from his monotone performance, the man looks frighteningly frail and you really have to wonder whether hes in any fit state to appear even in a cameo, let alone as the crux of the whole project. At one point were even asked to believe that hes able to come out victorious in a fist-fight with a man whos clearly double his size and strength thats how ridiculous this film is.
The rest of the cast (including Bridges as an overly-intense journo, Harris as a black-and-white minstrel, and an animal-loving Kilmer) are a determined old bunch, desperately delivering their lines and performances with the sort of conviction normally reserved for material that actually makes some degree of sense. No doubt appearing in a Bob Dylan movie seemed like a good idea at the time – but the words back and fire spring instantly to mind.