The Book of Clarence film review — raucous stoner comedy comes to biblical Jerusalem

God is in the multiplex. Barbie and Oppenheimer aside, the other good news story for the US cinema business in 2023 was Sound of Freedom. A crime thriller with a fixed stare and religious tint, the movie became a surprise $250mn hit for Angel Studios, specialists in faith-based film and TV. For the big screen trade, the vast new pool of ticket buyers was gratefully received. But the picture is confused by The Book of Clarence, a raucous stoner comedy dressed as an earnest Bible story, or actually the other way around.

Some confusion is unavoidable. The director is Jeymes Samuel, the British filmmaker who made a striking debut feature in 2021 with The Harder They Fall, its stars including Idris Elba and LaKeith Stanfield. That movie was a full-blooded Western with a majority Black cast that seemed at once brash reinvention and faithful re-enactment. Now the same mixed-up formula is applied to, of all things, the epic memory of Ben-Hur.

Stanfield stars here too, leading an ensemble featuring but not limited to Omar Sy, David Oyelowo and Benedict Cumberbatch. Together, they sport the robes and sandals of Jerusalem, 33AD, whose dusty streets we first see in a spectacular chariot chase. Such is the knockabout flavour early on. Samuel gives us a holy city not unlike any modern American urban centre, with fleshpot clubs and primo weed dealt by the genial if aimless Clarence (Stanfield). From out of the fug, a simple plot point sets all else in motion. With shekels owed to an underworld kingpin, and Jesus pulling quite a crowd, a plan is hatched for Clarence to become a false messiah. 

Yes, that wail you hear is the ghost of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The comic style is very different, though. In place of hysterical absurdism, Clarence’s hustle is wry. (Stanfield does a great line in deadpan.) Anyway, Samuel is too restless to stay in one lane, or stick with one tone. Subplots whirr. The movie freewheels. Much fancy camerawork is lavished on a grab-bag of repurposed New Testament figures. Here, for instance, the prisoner Barabbas (Sy) is a fearsome gladiator, at large in a natty fight scene.

But the unexpected victor is reverence. Primed for satire, we get religious affirmation. In a biblical Jerusalem where Black lives are oppressed by occupying Rome, the mood becomes sombre. But more pious yet is the place Samuel finds for Jesus himself, played by Nicholas Pinnock as nothing if not the real thing. The movie doesn’t just vouch for miracles. It becomes the story of disbelief converted. Even Mel Gibson would approve, particularly once we get to the scourging. 

Not all faith-based cinema connects with a faith-based audience, however. The film has already been released in the US. The result was a box office flop. Samuel clearly moves in ways too mysterious for the crowd that came out for Sound of Freedom. 

And yet at last week’s CinemaCon, the Las Vegas trade fair where Hollywood presents to cinema operators, much buzz surrounded the coming attractions of Angel Studios. Their showpiece project is to be a retelling of David and Goliath: made, an executive said, to become the most successful animation in history, displacing Disney’s The Lion King. The Book of Clarence makes a singular song of praise. Some audiences, you sense, prefer a war cry.

★★★☆☆

In UK cinemas from April 19