By Dan Skip Allen

“In the Hand of Dante” is a new film that premiered last year at the 82nd Venice Film Festival from director Julien Schnabel. It’s based on the book of the same name from Nick Tosches that combines two distinct time periods.. Nick is portrayed in the film by Oscar Isaac. He also plays the title character Dante Alagheiri. This film spans centuries regarding the time it takes place in. The first portion of the film is a period piece set in the 13th century, and the second portion of the film is in modern time. The period piece aspects of the story are in color, and the modern-day aspects are in Black & White. This film was bought out of Venice by Netflix. This is a very different movie than every other film I’ve ever seen. Netflix is finally releasing the movie in theaters for a theatrical run and on streaming this coming week on Netflix. 

Dante Alagheiri (Oscar Isaac) is the man who wrote the DivineComedy”. A piece of literature thought by most to be lost. Until a man found what he believed to be the manuscript of the “Divine Comedy” in a hidden compartment of the Vatican Library, which is part of the Catholic church in Italy. Word gets out to a man named Lefty (Louis Cancelmi) who brings in Nick Tosches (Oscar Isaac), who is an author and an expert on the subject. He gets recruited by a gangster Joe Black (John Malkovich), who hires him and his muscle Louie (Gerard Butler) to steal the document so they can sell it and make millions off of it. The problem is that there is more to this caper than meets the eye. These men have to prove whether or not this document is actually real and authentic. That’s the gist of the story.

Schnabel has done a few things that have made this 2 hrs and 33-minute film interesting. The first is the two different styles of filmmaking he used in the camera work and cinematography. Roman Vasyanov cinematographer used 4:3 aspect ratio in the period parts of the film and 1:85 in the modern-day portions of the film. These two different styles of cinematography both look amazing.  I absolutely loved the look of this movie. The color portions are breathtakingly beautiful. These small Italian towns jump off of the screen.The Black & White scenes also look phenomenal.The differences between these two parts of the movie gave me a great feeling while watching it. I loved how the story went back and forth between these two distinctly different time periods using different styles of filmmaking. 

Another thing that I thought was interesting while watching this movie was the fact that a handful of actors played multiple characters. Obviously, started off with Isaac as the two main characters and progressed to Gal Gadot as a love interest of both of Isaac’s characters.  One in the present and one past. Cancelmi and Butler also played two characters. The rest of the cast are pretty funny in their respective roles. Martin Scorsese plays an old priest, Isaiah, who helps the Alagheiri character. Jason Momoa plays an Italian hitman, Rosario, who is avenging the deaths of his family members. All the big cast members and small ones seemed like they were having a good time in this film. Some of these characters are meant to not be taken very seriously. This crime thriller has a comedic nature to it.

One actor who I didn’t include in the last paragraph was Gerard Butler. He’s been doing a bunch of action films. This is the first time I’ve seen him play a genuine viscous type guy. He plays a gangster who kills people indiscriminately. He doesn’t care who he’s killing, and sometimes, he even goes into a diatribe about their lives. He was so funny, and he nailed the New York accent and had a goofy blond mixed with a darker haircut. All of these things gave me a chuckle.  I was glad to see him doing something different for a change instead of the action movies like Greenland and Kandahar he has been doing lately. This role shows he’s got a lot of range to him as an actor. I’d love to see him play more villains like this one in the future.

Isaac was quite good as well as the two distinctly different people. His Alagheiri was more reserved, and his Tosches was more out there. He did a great job acting opposite Cancelmi, Malkovich, and Butler. I liked his moments with Scorsese. He was like a father figure in a way for him. Gadot, as the two lovers, worked well with him as well. He was quite believable in both roles. Schnabel cast him perfectly as these two distinctly different people. I was glad to see him as Victor Frankenstein lawyer and not these characters in this film this year. I definitely want more Isaac in movies in the future.

This story is one based on Tosches’ book, but it doesn’t mean that the book has to be based on real events because it’s not. It’s a fictional story that plays like a real heist film with gangsters and everything else thrown in for good measure. Schnabel adapts that story with Louise Kugelberg pretty well. It wouldn’t be easy for a great director to adapt this story, but Schnabel does a terrific job going back and forth between the two distinct time periods. I was able to differentiate between these two storylines perfectly well in the context of the film. He hasn’t directed a movie in a while before this one, but I hope he has a new one coming sooner rather than later.

“In the Hand of Dante” was a fun film. I loved the two different aspect ratios he and the cinematographer used to film this movie. The entire cast was pretty, especially Isaac, Butler, Scorsese, and AL Pacino in a small role. As a crime thriller, this movie completely worked for me. It also worked in a comedy sense. There were plenty of comedic moments in this story. They were there on purpose, not by accident. Netflix did a job picking this film up for their streaming service. I think a lot of people will enjoy this crazy story set in two different time periods. You just can’t go in with a serious mindset on this one. It’ll be a lot more fun to watch if you don’t take it seriously. 

🌟 🌟 🌟 stars