Summary
Robert De NiroandKathy Bates' star power wasn’t enough to save a 2004 drama film from a frightful 4% critical score onRotten Tomatoes.De Niro and Bates are two supremely influential and highly adorned American performers.De Niro has shone in Hollywood classicsthroughout his six-decade-long career, captivating moviegoers with performances in staples fromThe Godfather Part IItoThe Irishman,many of which have proved themselves significant feats in cinema. A multi-talent having produced and directed on top of performing in film (and TV), De Niro has secured 68 award wins and 174 nominations across his career.
Bates is a high-yielding thespian herself, landing 38 award wins and 99 nominations in her lifetime. Lauded performances inMisery,Dolores Claiborne, andFried Green Tomatoes, among others, definedBates' film career, which she complemented with spectacular stints in TV series such asAmerican Horror StoryandTwo and a Half Men. It’s easy to suspect thatcombining De Niro and Bates' esteemed and extensive expertise would make for a knockout movie-yet the 2004 dramaThe Bridge of San Luis Rey,directed by Mary McGuckian, has come to prove otherwise.
Kathy Bates has also directed or produced in film and TV for projects includingDash and Lilly,Six Feet Under, andThe Great Lillian Hall.
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Why The Bridge Of San Luis Rey’s Critical Reception Was So Bad
The Bridge Of San Luis Rey Couldn’t Bring Out The Best Of Its Premise
The Bridge of San Luis Reyis adapted from Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. It follows a friar called Brother Jupiter, who seeks divine reasoning for the fates of the five people he witnessed fall to their deaths in a bridge collapse. He sets out on an empirical journey, inquiring into the lives of the victims and interviewing locals about them in a bid to answer why God chose them to die.The Bridge of San Luis Reyis inherently profound and filled with psychologically rounded characters, which the movie fails to make the most of.
Instead, McGuckin’sThe Bridge of San Luis Reydeveloped Wilder’s story in a manner critics deemed sluggardly and poorly written. Although the reviews of just 24 critics make upThe Bridge of San Luis Rey’s4% Rotten Tomatoes score, their sentiments are more or less the same. TV Guide’s Maitland McDonagh branded the film"as lifeless as a wax tableau,“andNew York Daily News’Jack Mathews ripped it, writing,"[it’s] so dully written and executed that you’ll be wishing the production had collapsed.“Audiences - though a lot more lenient - mostly corroborated with critics, giving McGuckin’s film a dismal 36%.
The Bridge of San Luis Rey’sreception seems even worse with the knowledge that heavy-hitting stars like De Niro and Bates were attached.
The Bridge Of San Luis Rey’s All-Star Cast Makes Its Reception Even Worse
De Niro And Bates Weren’t The Only Big Stars Of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey’sreception seems even worse with the knowledge that heavy-hitting stars like De Niro and Bates were attached. Along with De Niro and Bates,The Bridge of San Luis Reyalso failed to take advantage of the rest of its impressive cast. The film featured the likes of multi-award winning actor Gabriel Byrne (Death of a Ladies Man), who played the lead as Brother Juniper, prominent stage and screen actor F. Murray Abraham (The Grand Budapest Hotel), and longtime De Niro co-star and revered actor in his own right Harvey Keitel (Taxi Driver).
The Bridge of San Luis Reyis Robert De Niro’s lowest-rated performance on Rotten Tomatoes.
The international stars Émilie Dequenne, Samuel Le Bihan, John Lynch, and Dominique Pinon helped to round outThe Bridge of San Luis Rey’scast as well. Most of the film’s reviews question how a movie can waste such talent, butwith an underdeveloped script and slow pacing to portray such an intense topic, it’s hard to see how any performer would be of use toThe Bridge of San Luis Rey. Fortunately, time and the shining careers of its cast have overshadowedThe Bridge of San Luis Rey’slacklusterlegacy.
