tisdag 29 september 2020

Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway

Weird films, what would life be without them ? Pretty boring i would imagine. I am one of those who love strange films, that dare to go in a different direction. Directors who have a different vision, is always welcome in my world, since i feel that we need weird films to explore different genres mixed up into each other. And i love it when a director just throw in ingredients that probably should not fit in there, but ends up being a perfect match. There are a lot of films that i could talk about in here, that are probably seen as a weird film, but i decided to bring up one film that i especially remember. And that is the 2012 film known as John Dies At The End. Directed by Don Coscarelli, this is one film i guarantee that you will never forget. The story surrounds a new drug on the streets called " Soy Sauce ", that is said to give uses an out of body experience like no other, including drifting across time and experience other dimensions. Slacker friends John ( Rob Mayes ) and David ( Chase Williamson ), a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down a job between them. They trug the drug Soy sauce, and are about to see a completely different world than they expected. If you recognized the name of director Don Cascarelli, i am not surprised. He also directed one of the biggest classics of the 2000´s, and that is of course Bubba Ho-Tep, with a brilliant Bruce Campbell in the lead role. His film John Dies At The End is a roller coaster like no other, with a lot of crazy scenes, crazy characters, and most of all the unexpected turns that this film offers. If you have not seen John Dies At The End, you must order a DVD or a Blu Ray copy, this is a must see. Earlier this year i came across a very weird trailer of a film called Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway. Just the title itself is brilliant, and the trailer seemed to be very different from any releases this year. I just had to see this film, and decided to get myself a Blu Ray from Arrow Video. Is this going to be one of the best films of this year, or should this film be heading straight into a trash can and not be seen ?

Agent D.T. Gagano ( Daniel Tadesse ), is a diminutive undercover agent with back problems and a passion for pizza. His job, with his partner Palmer Eldritch ( Augustin Mateo ), is to go into the CIA´s operating system, Psychobook, via virtual reality to root out problems. On the day he plans to resign so he can support his wife Malin´s ( Gerda-Annette Allikas ) dream of starting a kickbox Academy, he and Eldritch are sent into the system to root out a virus called " Soviet Union". However, after inhaling a toxic substance in VR, Gagano becomes trapped, while in real Life, he´s gone into an irreversible coma. A version of Gagano finds himself in an alternate-reality Ethiopia, where he is worshipped as a prince and persecuted by the president, who is dressed up in a superhero costume. Gagano have to find a way back to the real world, to make sure that his plans with his wife will become reality.

Imagine if you would have combined directors Quentin Tarantino and Terry Gilliam, as they are completely high on cocaine, and decided to make a kung fu film, and you have Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway. This is without a doubt the most odd film this year, and i guarantee that you will agree with me once you have experienced this film. It is hard to describe this film in a certain genre, because this film have a lot of different ideas mixed into each other. The idea behind this film is that the title of this film is based on a video game, and you do get to see that as some of the characters enter the game through VR glasses. And this is where all the insane stuff goes on. You have kung fu fights to get the arch of the covenant, secret spies fighting, laser shooting giant flies, some of the best dialogue scenes of this year, and acting so bad that it becomes brilliant. You even got Jesus in here, well…. a guy who believe that he is Jesus who gets high with a strange substance. Instead of going into every character, i thought i would especially say some really positive words about the performance of actor Daniel Tadesse. If anyone deserves to be in a future Tarantino film, it is without a doubt Daniel Tadesse. He is such a cool character in this film as Agent D.T. Gagano, and Daniel knows exactly how to portrait him in his own unique way. The same goes with his dialogie scenes, he knows exactly when to make every scene feel nostalgic. There are a lot of fun characters in this film, and especially the strange masked human like figure, who changes masks to look like certain famous people with odd talking masks. A detail that actually works surprisingly well, and gives this film a different look. The video game influences are all over the place, and if you can accept some crazy details, i guarantee you will be having a really good time. Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway is a film that does not follow any rules, and this is why i really enjoyed this film. With all these crazy ingredients, we get a film that does not care about how things should be, but follow the heart and bring us a delightful taste of B movie nostalgia. Director Miguel Llansó have made a film that will be a cult film classic, and is a film that should be seen by everyone. Do yourself a favor, pick up this film from Arrow Video, and exeperience a film that you never thought would be possible. This should be the Christmas gift of 2020 to everyone, no doubt about that.

Rating: DDDD

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