Critics Have Chosen The Worst Bill Murray Movie And It Isn’t Garfield
The critics appear to have chosen the worst Bill Murray movie, and this one is ridiculous in nearly every single way imaginable.
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Bill Murray is one of the true institutions we have in Hollywood and on the big screen. With a career that’s spanned about five decades, the actor and comedian has put out way more winners than losers over the years. It’s a testament to his talent and ability to choose roles that he will go down as one of the true greats. But fifty years is a long time and they all haven’t been critical darlings along the way. Far from it. Now, thanks to review aggregators and the like we can hone in on what critics thought might have been the low point in Bill Murray’s illustrious career. And it’s a movie you might have (thankfully) forgotten all about.
Passion Play came out in 2010 and considering the names involved it’s even more surprising that this movie never really managed to do drum up any support. Mickey Rourke stars as Nate Poole, a musician and recovering drug addict who finds himself roaming the desert only to come upon a carnival. There he meets Megan Fox’s Lily who is one of the performers there. He eventually whisks her away following some trouble with the carnies and they seek out the help of a local gangster, Happy who is played by Bill Murray. Sound confusing? Well, we are only getting started on that front.
See, it seems that Bill Murray’s character originally wanted Rourke’s character dead which led to the latter stumbling through the desert to find Fox. Oh, and did I mention that Megan Fox has wings on her back in this one? That’s how she got the gig at the carnival, to begin with. Such begins a struggle for the affections of this winged “angel” between the evil Murray and the troubled Rourke, all with Rhys Ifans kind of hanging around as the dude who runs the carnies. Again, it’s a bit confusing though likely trying desperately to play on the ideas of good and evil, angels and demons, etc. Check out the trailer for Passion Play and see if you can make sense of this mess.
Passion Play was written and directed by Mitch Glazer who had worked with Bill Murray on movies like Scrooged, Lost in Translation, and later Rock the Kasbah. This movie was his feature-length directorial debut. And it didn’t land, like at all. On a budget of $15 million, the movie managed only, wait for it, $3,669 dollars at the box office. I didn’t forget a comma and three more digits with that number. It actually earned less than four thousand dollars total. And on Rotten Tomatoes you can kind of see why. It’s sitting at just 3% though 33 reviews. Critics were pretty merciless with this thing, calling it words like “absurd”, “terrible”, “cheesy”, and “ridiculous” just to name a few.
No matter, it’s just one film and there’s plenty to see from Bill Murray over the years that more than makes up for it. Next up for the actor will be a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe when he appears in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania which releases next year. And he’s also set to star in another Wes Anderson movie, Asteroid City, though details around that one are scarce. In the meantime, see if you can find Passion Play somewhere just to witness the disaster.
