A masturbatory exercise in hero worship, Masked And Anonymous takes the (once) great Bob Dylan and teams him with oodles of actors who are all definitely BIG fans. The result is so bad it goes straight to DVD - - despite the starry cast.
Dylan is ageing musician Jack Fate, recruited to perform at a disastrous charity concert in an apocalyptic America ravaged by civil war - and that's it, the rest being any old excuse to find room for the likes of Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson and Penélope Cruz.
Die-hard fans will enjoy new versions of Dylan classics and may even enjoy the soundtrack's mix of foreign-language covers. But even the most fervent admirer must draw the line at Dylan's acting - grumpy mutterings and cadaverous looks do not a performance make.
DVD Extras:
Director Larry Charles' commentary tries to mine meaning from a script that doesn't feature dialogue, so much as a string of hippy platitudes. He fails. To pad the disc out, we also get a 20-minute Making Of, some deleted scenes and the expected array of trailers.
