Cheap Don Juan DeMarco (DVD) (Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp) (Jeremy Leven) Price

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Customer Reviews of Don Juan DeMarco

Johnny Depp plays a deranged man who believes he is Don Juan. After he tries to kill himself he is sent to a mental hospital where he begings to tell his story to his doctor, Marlon Brando. Brando is about to retire and he takes on Depp as a last case in more ways then one. Brando is seemingly having troubles of his own and in an odd way these two characters end up helping each other.

From that description, you would never guess it, but this is a comedy. So now that we are past that, it is the relationship between Depp and Brando is the real charm of Don Juan DeMarco. They seem to really enjoy working together. The diologue Depp delivers in this film is enormously cheesy, but he is so great he pulls it off. Certainly for Brando this is the most substancial role(as far as screen time goes) he has played in twenty something years. I find his role amusing and it is always good to see Brando having a good time.

Don Juan DeMarco is a fun little movie. It is kind of light though. However to me that does not really matter because it is witty and clever. It is definately a must see for Brando and Depp fans. People who enjoy quirky comedy should enjoy it as well.

Depp Leads Brando to Tango
Johnny Depp in the title role is more a Casanova type than a Don Juan. Don Juan only enjoys the chase; once he has captured the female, he abandons her. Casanova adored women, all women and found in them spiritual and physical perfection. This last describes Johnny Depp's role.

The movie opens with a gloriously romantic seduction of a modern day young woman by a masked, 18th century Spanish aristocrat. He leaves her stunned and ecstatic with joy while he dashes (cape swirling) to a building top to ---- commit suicide? It appears he has disgraced his true love. Marlon Brando, a psychiatrist, is called to the scene to "talk him down." No ordinary stairs or elevators to reach the rooftop for Mr. Brando. In a memorable scene, the portly gentleman grandly rides to the top in a cherry picker for his first meeting with Don Juan reincarnated. Their rapport is instantaneous (Depp identifies Brando as Don Ottavio de Flores,) and they ride down to street level together.

The real world intervenes. Don Juan is detained for psychiatric observation for his delusions and attempted suicide. Brando, about to retire, wants Depp to be his last case. Their meetings are florid reconstructions by Don Juan of his history (he was even as an infant enchanted by the ladies, seduced a gorgeous unhappy wife at 14, dueled with her husband, was sold in slavery to a Turkish caliph and not too surprisingly found himself in a harem). Brando becomes increasingly intrigued and gradually their positions are reversed. He is learning from Don Juan. He wants this romance in his own life as well. At home, he woos the bewildered Faye Dunaway with the strains of Mozart's magnificent "Don Giovanni" in the background.

The movie is a froth of visions---it is worth the price of admission to see Brando dancing a chiffon-clad Faye Dunaway on an exotic beach. They are touchingly in love. Johnny Depp never once steps out of character (or his well-done accent) and you almost conclude he is indeed the real Don Juan. It is his genius to be completely serious and yet wildly comic at the same time. "Don Juan de Marco" is a film for the romantic in all of us.

It sings? (sigh)
There are 2 movies, other than The Godfather, Streetcar Named Desire and The Contender, for which I want to remember Marlon Brando: A Bedtime Story and Don Juan de Marco. How many comedies has he made? In Don Juan de Marco, I enjoyed watching him be part of an ensemble cast, which has never really been his modus operandi on other sets. As much as he derided acting as a profession, his performance in this movie seemed to argue that he still liked doing it.

It is a very funny, sexy flight of notions about fantasy and reality, much like Harvey starring Jimmy Stewart did decades ago. Johnny Depp, Brando, Faye Dunaway and company, to paraphrase a line from the movie, really have a way of putting the story in touch with what is real. With Mexican ballads and exotic settings, Don Juan is like a male Sheherazad, buying time and confounding the truth. As a lovesick worshipper of romance, he asks why we even bother to call it love any more in a modern world rushing past emotion for the carrots at the end of the stick in our lives.

Just an aside, in the commentary for The Usual Suspects, the director mentioned that, after the filming of a street scene, Gabriel Bryne and company heard that Don Juan de Marco was filming at a location near there. The whole set was reputed to be filled with nude women bathing. They all rushed over to check it out. I tell this story to my guy friends who are quick to dismiss it on the grounds that it is a chick flick. It got the Usual Suspects anecdote of approval. They might argue that all the beautiful nude and/or scantily clad women would have made them watch, but they are acting like Rocco, the male nurse in the hospital Ð I mean at Don Octavio de FloresÕ villa, and you know what happened to Rocco Ð if not watch this movie.

The people in the audience that saw it with me back in 1995 enjoyed it enough to not just applaud afterward but to come out chatting and politely flirting while filing out of the theater. The ushers standing by the exit mentioned that Don Juan de Marco Òthawed everybody outÓ in a way they had not seen by other movies. Watching it on DVD with friends can be just as fun. Muy romantica! (Dancing to one of the songs in the sound track Me Siento Loco, Poco a Poco Ð translation: I Feel Crazy, Little by Little.)