Richard von Busack's review of director Abel Ferrara's last film. The two don't pretend that the God who administers their particular educated-Catholic version of ethics is always a God of Love. John movies, God always seems to demand sacrifice. But Ferrara's way of selling a moral tale now looks standardized. The Funeral feels too familiar in a sex scene in which a maddened Penn does something painful to a baby-faced prostitute and in the scene in which Gallo raves about decadence as a friend takes a rented girl right in front of him.
Christian ethics state that sexual looseness harms the soul as much as murder.
Besides, these scenes look too much like a director straining for gratuitous sensation in the midst of a more sober study. Some actors as werewolves are fascinating, but Gallo's Johnny is already half-crazed, a devil sick of sin, when we see him in flashback, and Penn's Chez looks like a killer from the moment he shows up on screen. The Funeral is minor, formulaic Ferrara, more a collection of occasionally interesting scenes than a consistently compelling drama. This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.