Epic Proportions

While this truly goofy hour-and-a-half of theater doesn’t always kill you with humor, it does always charm you with gusto. The 1986 comedy by Coen and Friends cocreator Crane takes place on the remote 1930s set of an ineptly planned Biblical-epic movie. Two brothers sign on as extras and get separated into different groups: While one brother suffers reenactments of the ten biblical plagues, the other luxuriates in feast and harem scenes. Things go downhill for the brothers from there.

It’s the cast that sells it; the nine actors who play the movie’s “cast of thousands” commit completely to the ridiculousness—with infectious energy. Every moment is dialed up to 11: When Extra No. 3 (the supremely engaging Liz Hoffman) flees a harem-girl scene gone awry, she releases a scream so loud and long that it drew an admiring “holy fuck” from an opening-night audience member.

The clever banter and general plot preposterousness far outshine the physical comedy; in a slapsticky gladiator fight scene, for instance, the joke is that the fight stretches on and on—but it’s never funny enough to overcome the sense that the scene just overstays its welcome. There are some exceptions to this flaw: In one great bit, Extra No. 4 (Tommy Culhane) delivers a line about ripening dates in a more hilariously overwrought manner each time he’s forced to redo a take.

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