Director: Julian Schnabel
Writers: Julian Schnabel, Louise Kugelberg
Stars: Oscar Isaac, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot
Synopsis: A handwritten manuscript of Dante Alighieri’s poem “The Divine Comedy” makes its way from a priest to a mob boss in New York City, where it is taken by Nick Tosches after he’s asked to verify its authenticity.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a gargantuan piece of flopsweat so unwatchable that not even its star-studded ensemble could save it. I mean – Oscar Isaac. Gerard Butler. John Malkovich. Jason Momoa. Franco Nero. Sabrina Impacciatore. Al Pacino. MARTIN. SCORSESE! You would think that this amazing ensemble could make Julian Schnabel’s decade-spanning In the Hand of Dante feel somewhat palpable or, at the very least, watchable. Sadly, you’d be wrong, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise if you’ve essentially seen what happened following its Venice premiere. Despite such an impeccably mounted cast, the movie couldn’t even get a major studio to acquire it; instead, Netflix dumped it on its streaming service with little to no fanfare.
Only Al Pacino gives In the Hand of Dante’s sole memorable performance – in one scene – as Nick Tosches’ (Oscar Isaac) uncle, Carmine, because he distills the essence of what Schnabel’s adaptation of Tosches’ book of the same name is about. In one single sequence, he tells the audience what’s most important to retain of Schnabel’s story that mirrors two time periods with each other, one where Isaac plays Dante Alighieri as he is in the process of writing his masterpiece, “The Divine Comedy,” and the other where Tosches is looking for the lost manuscripts of Dante’s work.
Many actors play dual roles, including Gal Gadot as Dante’s wife, Gemma Donati, and Nick’s current secretary, Giulietta. The movie tries to create parallels between the performances, but they end up bloating the film’s already long runtime to interminable lengths and introduce characters late in the runtime when it should stop adding new narrative (and thematic) threads on top of the ones that should already be developed. The conceit of the film sees Tosches help mob boss Joe Black (John Malkovich) and his second-in-command, Louie (Gerard Butler), retrieve the manuscripts and authenticate them, but the film takes so many detours that it never fully gets to the point.
Louie might be one of the dumbest mobster characters in movie history, as he kills literally everyone with potential knowledge of what Nick is currently doing, which leads the son of a slain boss (played by Jason Momoa) hot on his trail. The existential historical drama by way of Temu Terrence Malick doesn’t really work (although Roman Vasyanov’s striking black-and-white and color photography is certainly a highlight), but the mob storyline is even worse.
While Schnabel benefits from tableaux of a spiritual dimension and the aid of Martin Scorsese in portraying Alighieri’s mentor (even if his overall performance has little impact), the significance he attempts to link between the past and 2001 doesn’t have the intended effect. However, nothing will prepare you for the soap opera theatrics of its final half-hour, where Momoa, in a ridiculous Italian accent, attempts to top another historically terrible performance from Gadot, with zero emotional nuance or complexity, as she portrays Giulietta/Gemma’s longing with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Instead of staying in a gritty tone, which is exacerbated by the film’s striking use of black-and-white, Schnabel opts for tawdry melodrama, leaving his cast adrift, unable to latch onto anything that would make their work credible. It’s especially apparent for Isaac, who, after one of the most richly-layered turns of his career in the second season of Beef, plays Tosches and Dante with no real conviction and exaggerated histrionics that it’s almost laughable, but not as funny as the aforementioned Gadot and Momoa, “who can pull off the worst Italian accent you’ve ever heard” confrontation.
Even when the movie attempts to scratch deeper than its surface by attempting to link Tosches’ story to the universe’s grander theological designs and make Uncle Carmine’s words cut deeper than a knife wound, there are so many embarrassing sequences in this disaster that one even wonders what made Schnabel such an auteur in the first place. His portraits of artists (Basquiat and At Eternity’s Gate) are certainly his best movies, but when he gets esoteric and begins to fly off in a thousand different directions, that’s when they don’t work.
In the Hand of Dante falls in the latter category, but it’s not even a special kind of awful that you can laugh about with your friends while drunk. It’s a painfully miserable and overlong experience that saps your soul and reminds you that life isn’t worth sitting through these meaningless slogs that offer nothing of value to the audience, but most importantly to the people in front of the camera. Oscar Isaac has never been this bad. Gerard Butler has never been this bad. Martin Scorsese usually brings a welcome presence to his on-screen performances – even in films like Shark Tale, Outcome, and The Mandalorian and Grogu – but he can’t make his character work. It might just be the biggest waste of talent and time we’ll see in this modern era, and will hopefully dissuade anyone from ever collaborating with such a vacuous “artist” like Schnabel ever again.
