This film is like the construction of a very weird and very bored kid on a rainy afternoon when the power is out and he can't watch TV or go on his computer. It's a misshapen entity made out of the cinematic equivalent of Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, scotch tape and the twist ties off of loaves of bread. Featuring Jennifer Tilly's cleavage and James Caan as septuagenarian beefcake, it's also one of those stories that only has about 25 minutes of basic plot, so they add in another 70 minutes of filler to make movie out of it.
Leonard Gray (James Caan) is the agoraphobic and mentally slow building super of a 6 floor apartment building. He's referred to as a concierge in the film, but that's only because this thing was made by Europeans and that's apparently what they call their building supers. Anyway, the movie starts out by making you think that Leonard is going to be the centerpiece of a tale that involves the multiple different lives of the building's tenants.
There's Valda (Susan Glover), the middle aged woman who's going a little crazy out of loneliness. There's the young couple, Eugene and Dolores O'Donnell (Bruce Ramsay and Maribel Verdu). Eugene is a bit of a handyman and is infringing on Leonard's territory. Dolores is a drug addict having an affair with another man in the building. That guy is Bill Cherry (Peter Keleghan), who's the sort of dick who has sex with his mistress and is completely oblivious to her disinterest during the act. Bill is married to Donna (Jennifer Tilly), a licensed masseuse. Bill and Donna have a daughter, Holly (Victoria Jane Allen), that Leonard occasionally babysits. There's also the token gay guy, Gilbert (Mark Camacho). At least I think he's supposed to be gay. If he's not the token gay, I don't know what purpose his character serves. And finally, there's the insanely angry landlady named Lilly Melnick (Genevieve Bujold). Her husband dies at the start of the film and Lilly basically never stops screaming at people throughout the rest of the movie.
As far as the plot goes, one of the folks in the building gets killed, Lilly yells a lot, Donna and Leonard have sex but not really, and some other stuff happens that has nothing to do with the big secret that gets rolled out in the last half hour of the movie. Then there's the big secret, which might have been surprising but by the time it finally arrived, I had absolutely no interest in anything or anyone in this tale. I won't spoil the secret, except to say it's one of those overwrought Gothic things that might have been believable in a novel 100 years ago but now just comes off as stupidly unrealistic.
There are two good things in Jericho Mansions. Jennifer Tilly is quite sexy and James Caan does a good job playing Leonard as the sort of little man leading a little life that other people never really think about that much. Even Caan can't hold his performance together, though, as the story turns into a cross between a bad soap opera and an even worse psychological horror flick.
Everything besides Tilly and Caan is either outright dreadful, like Genevieve Bujold doing 90% of her scenes like someone's sticking a cattle prod in her vagina, or ultimately meaningless, like the subplot of Eugene making Leonard feel threatened, which is touched on twice and then forgotten.
Jericho Mansions also has a soundtrack of loud, intrusive music that sounds like it's from a totally different movie, flashback sequences that look like they're from the old TV show Twin Peaks and CGI special effects that appear to have been done by a high school A/V club.
This is one of those films that isn't interestingly bad or entertainingly bad or amusingly bad. It's just bad. Don't watch it.
Leonard Gray (James Caan) is the agoraphobic and mentally slow building super of a 6 floor apartment building. He's referred to as a concierge in the film, but that's only because this thing was made by Europeans and that's apparently what they call their building supers. Anyway, the movie starts out by making you think that Leonard is going to be the centerpiece of a tale that involves the multiple different lives of the building's tenants.
There's Valda (Susan Glover), the middle aged woman who's going a little crazy out of loneliness. There's the young couple, Eugene and Dolores O'Donnell (Bruce Ramsay and Maribel Verdu). Eugene is a bit of a handyman and is infringing on Leonard's territory. Dolores is a drug addict having an affair with another man in the building. That guy is Bill Cherry (Peter Keleghan), who's the sort of dick who has sex with his mistress and is completely oblivious to her disinterest during the act. Bill is married to Donna (Jennifer Tilly), a licensed masseuse. Bill and Donna have a daughter, Holly (Victoria Jane Allen), that Leonard occasionally babysits. There's also the token gay guy, Gilbert (Mark Camacho). At least I think he's supposed to be gay. If he's not the token gay, I don't know what purpose his character serves. And finally, there's the insanely angry landlady named Lilly Melnick (Genevieve Bujold). Her husband dies at the start of the film and Lilly basically never stops screaming at people throughout the rest of the movie.
As far as the plot goes, one of the folks in the building gets killed, Lilly yells a lot, Donna and Leonard have sex but not really, and some other stuff happens that has nothing to do with the big secret that gets rolled out in the last half hour of the movie. Then there's the big secret, which might have been surprising but by the time it finally arrived, I had absolutely no interest in anything or anyone in this tale. I won't spoil the secret, except to say it's one of those overwrought Gothic things that might have been believable in a novel 100 years ago but now just comes off as stupidly unrealistic.
There are two good things in Jericho Mansions. Jennifer Tilly is quite sexy and James Caan does a good job playing Leonard as the sort of little man leading a little life that other people never really think about that much. Even Caan can't hold his performance together, though, as the story turns into a cross between a bad soap opera and an even worse psychological horror flick.
Everything besides Tilly and Caan is either outright dreadful, like Genevieve Bujold doing 90% of her scenes like someone's sticking a cattle prod in her vagina, or ultimately meaningless, like the subplot of Eugene making Leonard feel threatened, which is touched on twice and then forgotten.
Jericho Mansions also has a soundtrack of loud, intrusive music that sounds like it's from a totally different movie, flashback sequences that look like they're from the old TV show Twin Peaks and CGI special effects that appear to have been done by a high school A/V club.
This is one of those films that isn't interestingly bad or entertainingly bad or amusingly bad. It's just bad. Don't watch it.