Original Sin
How do you begin to review a film like Original Sin? It’s like trying to catch the wind in a jar; you simply cannot express how bad/good this film is. Like Moulin Rouge earlier this year, this is a film at war with itself: It wants to be so good and important, but an equal part of it wants to be bad and stupid. And you know what they say about having it both ways.
One of the problems with reviewing a film like this is how to detail the plot. You want to make it sound interesting, but yet not give too much away. After all, this is one of those films that relies on keeping you in the dark, until it twists and does something absolutely stupid to keep the plot going until the next twist, and then, thirty or forty of them later, it tacks on the preposterous ending you expected all along. What I can say is that Antonio Banderas plays Luis Vargas, a coffee grower in 1800s Cuba, who does incredibly thoughtful and romantic things for women, but can’t seem to find a wife. What Vargas has is money, and he uses that to acquire a mail order bride from Baltimore with an English accent. When asked why he does this, he explains, “America is the future. Cuba is the past.” No way.
His bride is played by Angelina Jolie, who is not who she seems. No way!
Then things get complex. And believe me when I say that complexity is not this film’s strong suit. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say this: When it takes weeks to mail a letter to the States from Cuba, how does a character manage to travel within a couple of days?
Here’s where the review gets tricky: There’s a lot to like about Original Sin in a campy sort of way. For instance, the love scenes look an awful lot like those from another torrid classic, Wild Orchid, in that they defy both gravity and logic. The acting’s hard to judge because it really looks like the entire cast is trying to act with passion and conviction, but it comes across like one of those Spanish soap operas on Telemundo. Weirdly enough, this is just what the film needs.
Banderas turns on the charm as Vargas, all smoldering, looks and intense sex appeal. Jolie is to be applauded for doing her best with a role, which requires her not only to be naked most of the time, but fake an accent, have every male character feel her crotch area while whispering in her ear, and have a man pry open her mouth in the heat of passion and spit in it. I really believed this could happen to a woman. I felt her pain and her pleasure. I sense another Oscar in her future. Did I mention she delivers such profundities as, “Do you believe pleasure can ever be sinful?” and “You cannot walk away from love,” with a British accent. Sexy bitch!
But it’s really Thomas Jane, as an American investigator, who gets the film’s best moments. Jane, who has appeared in the reality-based porn-epic Boogie Nights and the reality-based wild-shark-ate-my-lab-research-crew-thriller Deep Blue Sea, once again goes for the real with his rough and tumble performance. One has to wonder if he’s a method actor. If so, how did he prepare for his really big moment: Kissing Banderas to see if he tastes like Jolie. (My answer to the former is no, but I am no expert). He also gets to utter the film’s best line: “It teases my dick when you beg.” NO WAY!
Can you tell I loved it? What other film out there right now offers you as much bang for your entertainment buck? This film is bad, but in the best possible ways. It’s worth noting that the director, Michael Cristofer, also directed 1999s much maligned Body Shots, which I also liked. From my research on Cristofer, I found out that he is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. How the hell did THAT happen?