buckle up, I got lots to say here.
so The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is a hell of a mess, but its a mess that only Terry Gilliam could ever make. It doesn't work all the time, and some parts of it are bad to off putting, but when its in its grove it really sings. It does feels almost churlish to complain too much about this film. It opens with the note "After 25 Years of Production...", I mean, not every film has got that. The first two credits at the end are for now-dead potential leads for iterations of the film that were scuttled, not every film has got that either. But being overstuffed, overlong, self-indulgent, and being rough around the edges? Lots of films have got that.
A callow Adam Driver goes on a picaresque journey through Spain with an old man who believes himself to be Don Quixote and him to be Sancho Panza, hilarity ensues. And for a movie with a multi-decade prep time, its surprisingly loose, sometimes feeling even improvisational (unlikely that it may be). Jonathan Pryce is way friggin great, its very often funny, and it even pulls off the tricky tonal balance of making its main character a figure of ridicule and an exemplar of some sort of bruised nobility. So its a bit unfortunate that its Don Quixote is the most successful element of the film by far, with the rest comprising a mish mash of questionable casting choices or some rough execution of whatever Gilliam had in mind.
For example, here's one weird thing, in part a Spanish produced film set in Spain, filmed in Spain, about the most famous work of literature that Spain ever produced, and the two biggest Spanish movie stars in the movie don't play Spaniards (Sergi Lopez fucking kills his part tho). I'm being a bit rough on this film, but I still liked it overall, and there's way more to digest here than in most other films I have mixed feelings about.
Its a film very much apiece with the rest of Gilliam's career. In fact its a bit like any of the other not-quite there works of his that were constrained by some of his famously bad luck (The Brothers Grimm first came to mind). So its as many parts frustrating and sloppy as it is splendid with the edge going towards 'good' than 'bad' sides of the meter but its reading looks like a friggin polygraph when its done.
