THE LAST SUPPER (2025)

When you think about it, the best movies ever made, The Godfather and The Godfather 2, although loosely adapted from Shakespeare's King Lear, is very biblical in its ancient-based Italian-sourced deceptions and power struggles... And here was an opportunity for that original muse to imitate its imitator, having the two central characters, Judas and Peter, at surreptitious odds leading to the titular Last Supper, which, plot-wise, is hardly even treated like a light snack here...  

And while the acting was surprisingly decent, it was far too obvious who was who... For example, in the opening Feeding of the 500 scene: even if it were a silent film, the way one of the disciples timidly ducked his head into a shady cloak, it was obviously Judas, and he never let go of those contrived physical mannerisms, as if he were playing a junky-snitch on an episode of Kojak...

Meanwhile, Peter, while not badly cast, looking like a genuinely rugged fisherman, doesn't do enough to merit the inner-struggle he goes through during the initial prediction of the betrayal, and then the betrayal itself... It's almost like The Last Supper was trying to recreate a sort of after-game-highlights version of Mel Gibson's Passion (including the horror-trope Satan and the harshly whipped Jesus) more than narrowing itself into an effective thriller with built-in treacherous suspense straight from the source material... making the last half feel like an eternity. Grade: C—

BORN AGAIN (1978)

Part Watergate political-historical biopic but mostly Christian propaganda that includes veteran actor (and our personal favorite) Dana Andrews quoting C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity to a somewhat selfish, partially greedy and supposedly only-coincidentally guilty Richard Nixon lawyer Chuck Coulson thrown into jail; and that's where the good stuff occurs, especially thanks to the always-intense blaxploitation ace Raymond St. Jacques, the tough guy in the federal prison...

Who initially bullies and then protects Coulsin, played by Dean Jones, usually cast in Disney flicks as their then-modern-day Jimmy Stewart; thus that kind of man-next-door quality keeps this character-study down-home and intriguing albeit one-sided and self-promoting yet never boring but not altogether great either but, for what can be called a 2-hour cinematic Alter Call (resembling a Television Movie-of-the-Week), BORN AGAIN fits both the title and purpose, nicely enough to pass the time since these kind of preachy melodramas can often feel like eternity. Rates: ***/12