The Last Circus

Amusingly offbeat Spanish circus flick is overkill comic booky

After a prologue during the Spanish Civil War, the time switches to 1973, Madrid, where a sad clown (Carlos Areces) joins a circus and an alluring trapeze artist catches his eye, but she’s abused by her beau, a supposedly happy clown (Antonio de la Torre). It can’t end well.

A Spanish/French production (with English subtitles), "The Last Circus" (2010) smacks of a Tarantino flick if he did one about a circus and shot it in Spain. Unfortunately, it lacks his compelling dialogues. It’s reminiscent of "Santa Sangre" from two decades prior, just overblown and with a plot revolving around two characters locked in an epic struggle in which a lose-lose scenario is likely.

As the story progresses, one of these characters is reminiscent of The Joker (Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger’s versions) mixed with Two-Face and Jonah Hex; the other meanwhile morphs into a pudgy version of Papa Emeritus. The last act recalls the climax of 1989’s “Batman,” albeit on amphetamines.

Statuesque Carolina Bang as the trapeze artist is basically Europe’s taller version of Margot Robbie, a few years before she made it big.

While outrageously madcap and brutal, it’s sometimes amusing and has its highlights. It’s basically too crazy for mass appeal, but no doubt has a cult following. As far as I’m concerned, less is more.

The film runs 1 hour, 47 minutes, and was shot in Spain (Comunidad Valenciana on the southeast coast; Madrid; and, for the last sequence, Valle de los Caídos, aka Valley of the Fallen, which is a half hour drive northwest of the city).

GRADE: C+/B-