The Burnt Orange Heresy: Nothing but ash

The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019) • View trailer 

1.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, nudity, sexual content, drug use and violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.25.20 

Deliver us from filmmakers who cherish attitude and atmosphere over plot logic and credible characters.

 

James (Claes Bang, left) and Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki) are initially awed to be in
the presence of renowned art power-broker Joseph Cassidy (Mick Jagger), but they
become more wary when their host explains what he wants from them.

Director Giuseppe Capotondi’s The Burnt Orange Heresy — available via Amazon and other streaming services — drowns beneath pretentious monologues and arch behavior. It’s a confined four-hander: a tedious stage play with delusions of big-screen glory. Scripter Scott B. Smith makes absolute hash of celebrated crime writer Charles Willeford’s 1971 novel, pitting three condescending men — each an insufferable aristocratic sophisticate — against a lone woman who may as well have the word “victim” tattooed on her forehead.

 

Indeed, it’s painful to watch an actress of Elizabeth Debicki’s talent play such a relentlessly stupid and blindly reckless character.

 

If Capotondi wanted to emulate the gritty, neo-noir ambiance of Willeford’s prose — 1984’s Miami Blues remains a masterpiece of hard-boiled crime fiction — the director missed by a mile.

 

Danish actor Claes Bang (no relation, I assure you) rapidly becomes tedious as arrogant art critic James Figueras: fallen from his profession’s grace, and reduced to lecturing witless tourists in Milan, in hopes of selling more copies of his book, The Power of the Critic. (Was there ever a more pompous title?)

 

Not even five minutes into this film, you’ll seek escape.

 

This particular day is different; James’ oft-repeated presentation concludes with the appearance of the coquettish Berenice Hollis (Debicki). She has sought him out — for reasons Smith’s script never makes clear — and mutual lust slides them into bed.

 

Cue a gratuitously explicit sex scene that suggests we’re in for an erotic thriller: a genre Capotondi never comes close to delivering.