Caravaggio

8/21/2024

I knew there had to be a reason why anyone ever cared about Sean Bean. A more wooden actor I think I've never seen, but here his conniving "Ranuccio" is sexy and provocative and put together with Nigel Terry's convincing performance as the eponymous artist and Dexter Fletcher's efforts as the younger, manipulative, Caravaggio, this is a no-holes barred/bared look at debauchery and hedonism in a papal Italy that was way more interested in sex and depravity than it was upholding the values of Christian decency. Indeed, the closer to the throne of St. Peter one gets the more licentious you seem to need to be. That's ideally epitomised by Nigel Davenport's "Giustiniani" and the under-rated Michael Gough as "Cardinal Del Monte" - now, he really does like to say "yes"! Robbie Coltrane doesn't do