The latest film I watched on my First Time Watching list was Gone With The Pope, which was recently released on Blu-ray from Grindhouse Releasing. I had never heard of this film until Grindhouse announced it's release. The synopsis for the film sounded very intriguing and cool so I pre-ordered it right away. Upon receiving the Blu-ray and watching the film, I can say that I was pretty disappointed overall with the film itself. The actual Blu-ray was a pretty strong release with some good special features and a strong presentation. However, the film was just not for me.
Here is a quick rundown of the film's plot. Basically the film is about a plan of capturing the pope and ransoming him for one dollar from every catholic in the world. At least that is what the film is supposed to be about. This plot line is only followed for a pretty short amount of run time. Far less than it should have. It seemed like this plot took up about a third of the film's run time. The rest of the film seems to just be a collage of different ideas that were stuck together.
The patched together feel of the plot should not come to too much of a surprise because the film was left uncompleted for a few decades and was just finally completed and released a few years ago. Duke Mitchell, the director of the film, started making the movie in the mid 70's and was unable to complete the film before his death in the early 80's. The film was found years later in his garage and was slowly and carefully put together. After over a decade since the film was found in the mid 90's, the film was completed and released. So while it is definitely an interesting story in terms of bringing to life a long forgotten and uncompleted film, the film itself is not all that great.
The parts directly relating to the described plot of the film are pretty good. The actual plot of kidnapping the pope and ransoming him to his faithful is a very interesting idea. Unfortunately the film itself spends too little time on this idea and more on the man behind the plan. Which would normally not be a problem but the way it is done in this film is a little disjointed. It appears to me that the film focuses a large majority of it's run time of building up the main character, trying to make him cool. For the most part the film does not succeed in doing so. Besides the segments where he is walking through Las Vegas and when he is planning and performing the hit on the five individuals, the character building falls flat. The film has a whole scene were it appears that the filmmakers were trying to show how cool the character was and instead showed how astonishingly racist the character was. The obvious argument would be that it was very much a product of the time, which it definitely could be. However, it still doesn't make it okay and beyond that it doesn't help make the film any better.
Overall the film itself is not that great. It has a very strong premise that could have brought about a lot of cool action and excitement if the filmmakers utilized it better. While there is nothing wrong with developing the characters in a film, the way the characters are developed in this film leaves a lot to be desired. Spending more time on the kidnapping and ransoming of the pope could have propelled this film into a classic instead of unique curiosity that it is now. If you are interested in checking out this film I would recommend going in with lowered expectations in terms of the development of the interesting marketed plot. The Blu-ray release from Grindhouse Releasing is a pretty strong release and it is recommended for those that might be interested or compelled to watch this curious little film.
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