A good performance from Ethan Hawke and solid look at the state of many cities during the Covid-lockdown era are the only things that save this completely cryptic movie by Abel Ferrara.

In a desertic Rome due to the pandemic, an international and hidden organisation targeting to blow up the Vatican City to pieces is getting prepared for the attack. JJ (Ethan Hawke), an American soldier arrives to the city with the command to stop the bombing and dismantle the cell behind it. In parallel, he will try to find out what has happened to his brother recently released from jail.

It is not even easy to write a brief synopsis to this film due to how unintelligible its plot is. Abel Ferrara simply stirs the pot with his usual traits (flawed characters, religious symbolism, sex, drugs, and violence) but the mystery resulting from it makes little to no sense. From it, we can extract the idea that the two brothers played by Ethan Hawke are two prophets in earth with two different takes on society. If that element, the different but at the same time correct perceptions of the world (to which Ethan Hawke makes reference at the end of the film) had been truly the driving force of the film, we may have gotten a much more understandable and interesting story. The stubborn focus on an uninteresting and unclear espionage and terrorist mystery does not entice the same level of interest.

The look of the film does not help either. Its super grainy look together to its completely dark setting, close to pitch black at times, make it an even more difficult watch. Not only the plot seems baffling, but its aesthetics keep it barely comprehensible image-wise. The only visual element that could be slightly salvable are the special effects, in particular the ones used for the various bombings. They are very clearly fake, but the way that they are superimposed and edited make up for a rather pleasing impact with enough shock value.

Fortunately, not everything is negative.  In fact, Ethan Hawke’s performance is actually quite good. The way in which he acts the parts of the two brothers, although one of them is basically just one scene (it should have been a bigger role), is quite impressive. With very little he is able to convey enough in presenting the obvious similarities that the two characters share as siblings, while also showing the strong discrepancies that they have in their philosophies and political outlook. One being conservative, stoic and traditional, while the other is socialist, intense and revolutionary. As it has previously been said, during the film we are given enough hints to make us believe that those two people would in fact equal one full prophet making those characters even more interesting.

The final element to highlight from this film is its presentation of the Covid pandemic period, more specifically the lockdown era. Although Ethan Hawke advises us in a speech previous to the beginning of the film that this is not a movie about the pandemic per se, its impact to the overall atmosphere and setting is more than palpable. The desolate streets, ghostly buses, masks, disinfectant soaps, and Covid tests and controls become recurrent elements that affect our characters activities. This is also visible via the great technological boom which has enhanced all sorts of video-communications among individuals.

This is after all a very complex and difficult film to watch, not recommendable to the casual audiences. Abel Ferrara’s films have always suffered of not having the most accessible themes and narratives but usually have been attractive visually speaking. Sadly, this movie keeps the first element but lacks the second making it an even more complex watch. Nevertheless, if you try to think around its puzzling story, enjoy the work of Ethan Hawke, and are curious to see a production in the middle of the pandemic, this may actually become a sufficiently interesting viewing.