Jericho Mansions (2003) Online

Without a doubt this is the best movie that I've seen in a very long time. The Story centers around the agoraphobic, amnesiac superintendent of an apartment building called, as you guessed, Jericho Mansions. When one of the residents is murdered, dark secrets come out and wounds from his past are reopened. What secrets do the walls of Jericho Mansions contain?

To avoid spoilers, that's the best I can give you for plot. Kept me guessing until the very end in true thriller fashion. For a change the twist ending was completely unexpected and very well done. All the actors, especially James Cann, gave great performances. I do wish some of the characters had more screen time, but that wasn't a huge problem. The CGI effects left a lot to be desired, but the idea behind them was pretty good.

Overall this is a great mystery that sucks you in right from the opening. I found it in a bargain bin for $5, and if you happen to be browsing through just such a bin I highly recommend picking this up. Amazing film that deserves a lot more recognition.

9/10

There seems to be several pieces missing in this puzzle. A phone call from a sister intensifies a landlady's inexplicable mistreatment of her slow agoraphobic building superintendent. The butt of jokes among the local cops, she once again accuses him of theft but nothing is ever found. But after thirty years, the super's confusing dreams of what appears to be a bad spaghetti western suddenly come into focus when he becomes the focal point of a brutal murder. Has he murdered someone while sleepwalking? The tenants bear witness to his wild swings of passivity and passion.

Wildly confusing at times, it all becomes crystal clear in the end when we discover why the landlady is sure the super has been stealing from her for years. When at last, he comes to understand who and what he is, will he actually know what it is he wants? When the ones who desert it, get what they deserve, will he get what he wants and deserves? For those who willing pay attention and stick this movie out, they will enjoy having all their questions answered.

I agree with the previous comment regarding this film as an attempt to merge European sensibilities .. and I might I say, as a genre piece this works very well. Much better than most of the studio crap being tossed about. I felt Mr. Caan's performance was intense and incendiary; tragic and tortured.

I was impressed by this film. If you enjoy fantastic, interesting cinematography and the lush pulp of a thriller picture, I highly recommend this one. That said, it does have its limitations. But it is an effectively powerful flick overall. I feel what has been referred to as "roller coaster" cinematography and moving the camera as these filmmakers have done, established a visual empowerment for the viewer that makes this seemingly direct-to-video indie a compelling watch.

In the world of international cinema, with various countries cultures and actors beginning to have an increased presence on screens internationally, Jericho Mansions is an admirable attempt to merge European sensibility with American storytelling. While unlikely to win major awards, it does deserve some recognition for its professional production design, imaginative steady-cam work and world-class visual effects.

Leonard Grey (James Caan) has been the super of the apartment building Jericho Mansions owned by Lily Melnick (Geneviève Bujold) for thirty year. Leonard is slow and agoraphobic, having also frequent amnesia, and dedicates his leisure time to build a complex bridge with clips. When the husband of the landlady Lily dies and she receives a call from her sister that lives in Europe, Lily rebukes Leonard and tries to force him to be fired or arrested by the police, forging evidences that he is a thief. However, most of the dwellers like Leonard and he stays working in the building. When Bill Cherry (Peter Keleghan), the husband of the masseuse Donna Cherry (Jennifer Tilly) and lover of the Spanish Dolores O'Donell (Maribel Verdú), is murdered in Jericho Mansions during the night, the police investigate the murder and there are many suspects, including Dolores's betrayed husband Eugene (Bruce Ramsay); Lily and Leonard. However, Jericho Mansions hides a dark and cruel secret.

"Jericho Mansions' is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen, and I liked it. The intriguing story develops the bizarre characters very well and has a totally unexpected plot point, when a gruesome and very dark secret is disclosed and the viewer discloses one of the most cruel and repulsive villains of the cinema history. The acting is superb, highlighting Geneviève Bujold and James Caan, and this movie is underrated in IMDb. If you are seeking an original story with a surprising twist, rent or buy this DVD and I bet you will like this movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Condomínio" ("The Condominium")

Alberto Sciamma's "Jericho Mansions" is a strange film that hides a secret we are not going to be told until the end. This is a story of a building super, who is evidently slow, or mentally challenged. The film is mildly engrossing and it shows a director whose sensibilities seem to be rooted in European film making.

At the center of the story we have Leonard Grey, who we realize early on has a mental problem. The landlady, Lily Melnick is a horrible woman who seems to get pleasure in berating her employee. We wonder, why not fire him? Well, that's not possible because we discover toward the end the nightmare Leonard has gone through in his life and how the truth has eluded him all the years he was under Mrs. Melnick's employment.

James Caan makes a rare appearance in this indie production. He is good as the super that seems to be perplexed by all what's going on around him. Genevive Bujold, rarely seen these days, also makes an interesting landlady from hell. The supporting cast does good work under Mr. Sciamma's direction, notably Jennifer Tilly and Maribel Verdu.

"Jericho Mansions", while not breaking new ground, is different in the way the story is presented and developed.

I did appreciate this one! It wasn't a surprise because I had read some previous comments here on IMDb, and the movie is just like some of them said: a piece of art cinema with a great cinematography! The "roller coaster" camera effect is really great and gives it an original and artistic touch, which I really appreciated! The plot, by itself, isn't particularly fantastic or original, in spite of have some suspense/mystery and create tension to the viewer. So, what's really great in this movie is its cinematography (especially the camera work). The characters are also great, very well constructed in the plot. In my point of view I just felt pity by the ending. I mean, I would prefer a more inconclusive ending, rather than this one, straight and "well explained"… In fact I think the movie would be better, and would have an increased artistic value, if the plot (and especially the ending) wasn't so straight to follow, like a banal/common murder story! I agree with a previous comment when the author says this movie crosses the European cinema sensibility with the American storytelling… I guess it's just like that, and in my point of view I think the film lost something with the American storytelling part…

All actors' performances were also good, but I will emphasize the main role played by the gentleman James Caan. I think it's well worked out and is a great part of the film!

It's a good art-cinema film which I will score 9/10, especially because of that!

The most accurate description of this film is to say it is a cross between Roman Polanski's "The Tenant" and Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Delicatessen." Though not quite as successful as either of those two films, it is nonetheless worth checking out. Despite a few holes in the story and some derivative film-making, there is much of interest here. The art direction is fine, James Caan's performance is quite good, Genevieve Bujold and Jennifer Tilley are lots of fun, and the director is quite astute at making the apartment building a character in itself. Overall the film has a surreal, haunting quality that resonates long after viewing.

***SPOILERS*** Lying in bed and playing with a paper-clip Jericho Mansions superintendent Leonard Gray, James Caan, tell us the story of what happen in that apartment building that put him in the place that he's in now.

Leonard knows only his life as a super at that apartment building and nothing else. In his fifties he knows nothing of what he did up until he was in his late twenties. That's when he somehow became the superintendent of that building. What he did and what kind of life he lead before that is a total blur to him. But two events happened the week before that had his past come back to him and it came back with deadly results.

The landlady of the Jericho Mansions Mrs. Lily Meinick, Genevieve Bujodl, had just lost her husband of over thirty years Robert, Pierre Rioux. Shortly after Roberts funeral she got a call from her sister in France Bettina, Lenie Scoffie, via a singing telegram that she's coming over to see Lily for the first time in thirty years. These two events set Lily off in an insane way to get rid of her long-time superintendent Leonard Gray by hook or by crook. Even if it took a murder on her part to do it.

You wonder why this hatred and at the same time fear of the meek shy and seemingly harmless Leonard Gray? He never left the building in the thirty years that he worked there! Leonard also seems to be so helpless outside that if he's fired, which Lily can't do because he belongs to a Superintendents Union, he my well die on the cruel and cold city streets.

When in desperation trying to get Leonard arrested by the police for stealing her husbands watch it becomes obvious that Lily planted it in Leonard's room. It's then that her whole plan to rid herself of him completely begins to fall apart. Then one evening one of the tenants in the building Bill Cherry, Peter Keleghan, is found dead at the bottom of the buildings incinerator. Lily seeing her chance tries to blame his death, or murder, on Leonard! But with no evidence at all to Leonard's guilt for the death of Bill Cherry and Lily totally unable to get rid of him she starts to lose her sanity and begins to go mad. What's the reason for all these actions on the part of Lily anyway? What is there about Leonard that she's been keeping hidden from him and suppressing all these years? We find out at the end of the movie that the secret that is hidden by Lily as well as hidden deep inside Leonard's subconscious mind have left the two suffering with deep psychological scars. That secret is so terrible that we slowly begin to understand why Lily acted the way that she did in trying to get rid of Leonard all through the film.

It was the past that she and her husband so cleverly covered up over the last thirty years that was about to the surface. Now everything that Lily did to prevent it from coming out was as useless to stopping it as a sea-wall is in holding back the Atlantic Ocean. And it's that dark and hidden secret that was to lead to her doom.

This film is so bad it's definitely good. A decent cast led by James Caan & Genevieve Bujold, a tortured script and one of the best buildings ("Jericho Mansions") in cinema since "the Bates Mansion" of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic black comedy "Psycho." I would not be the least surprised if this perfect bomb eventually became a cult classic. Maybe if it could get an extended Halloween run at an Art House cinema in Cambridge (MA)? The dialog is pure camp and the cinematography is so confusing and disjointed that a viewer could begin wondering if their sanity could really be counted upon if reality were to be ever so slightly tweaked. In spite of all this it miraculously, somehow, works! From one bad scene to the next one finds oneself, almost hypnotically, waiting to see what will happen next.

To avoid including any spoilers I will not comment on the plot. Basically, it probably can be categorized as belonging to the "Mystery" genre but this does not do it full justice as it has aspects of comedy, both black, screwball and otherwise, as well as farce and satire.

I would not hesitate to recommend this one to anyone looking for an escape from the mind numbing mainstream cinema that is afflicting the public in these times.

A nice mystery that has lots of twists and turns. The young girl who played Holly was adorable. It had a strong cast and a rich look. I loved the use of the steady cam CSI like graphics. I personally would not have used all of the profanity, but that is me. It was filmed in Saint John, New Brunswick. I was lucky enough to see it at the Tidal Wave Film Festival in November of 2003. It sold out so they had to add another screening.

Jericho Mansions (2003): Dir: Alberto Sciamma / Cast: James Caan, Genevieve Bujold, Jennifer Tilly, Victoria Allen, Bruce Ramsay: Stylish masterpiece about a hotel and its residents particularly one man who cannot venture outside the hotel and has blocked out a previous life that he cannot recall. James Caan plays the superintendent who has rendered the building his world for the last three decades. The landlady is conspiring to kick him out and eventually someone is murdered and found in a dumpster and police believe that they have a suspect when a cell phone is found in the wrong place. Caan sees evidence that points to himself although he is unsure how that can be. Well crafted with a screenplay full of twists and an ending that is riveting and tense. Directed by Alberto Sciamma who knows how to make everyone appear guilty, and he is backed with a cast that can pull of the double nature of trust and deceit. Flawless performance by Caan who struggles to piece everything together with time rapidly running out. Genevieve Bujold as a sadistic landlady is on target as she schemes her way to success, and how she really does fit into the think of things overall. Jennifer Tilly plays a prostitute who is befriended by Caan, and Victoria Allen plays her daughter whose back pack conceals the murder weapon. Clever thriller about a life concealed by betrayal. Score: 10 / 10

"Jericho Mansions" is all about Caan as the super shy Super of an apartment building of the title name where people are dying to live while someone is whacking them with a ball pein hammer. Caan seems to be going off his nut trying to figure out if he's doing the dirty deeds as the film wears on and wears out. An awkward attempt at the ever popular psycho-thriller-horror-drama genre, "JM" is an amateurish production which uses brain farts and bad ideas where creativity should be. The result is a lame bunch of nonsense with a mediocre ensemble cast, an awful screenplay, and no CC's or subtitles (on the DVD I watched). Everything an indie shouldn't be and a good film to miss. (C-)

I agree more with the last comment that was not in favor of that movie. The plot is ridiculous and superficial (why Genevieve Bujold's character waited 30 years to try to get rid of the super??), James Caan's play is so "interiorized" that he seems to be bored all the time to the max (where is his superb acting like in Misery; OK, it was 15 years ago, but still. Genevieve Bujold -though in her early 60's- seems to be a wreck (is it done on purpose?). She was so fresh in her youth. The little girl seems to read her script on a cardboard, Jennifer Tilly -though very sexy and voluptuous- irritates my ears every time she opens her mouth...Let's don't talk about the other actors (probably wondering what the hell am I doing in this movie, well as long as I get my paycheck). The beginning was promising, kind of "a la Amelie Poulain" in design, colors and way of shooting, but helas the soufflé is going down little by little and lets' say after 45 mns, the story is still a succession of scenes with no that great interest that you start to wonder "hey, what's the point?...and the finale is not better.

When some people say that "JM" is a (nice) try to look like an European movie with an American sense, they are not very expert for sure. If you like the kind of movies with colorful characters in one place, you better watch the excellent Alex de La Iglesias's "La comunidad"(Spain-2000), starring Carmen Maura (former Almodovar's protégé): a masterpiece of humour noir (black comedy), brilliant and funny script, excellent acting and good and wacky action from the start to the end.

Artfully filmed (almost overly artfully filmed with lots of flashy camera movements swooping in and out of various apartment buildings like a fly on the wall--its very show-off-ish but it does draw your attention) movie starting off about a seemingly agoraphobic apartment manager played by a very wary (and uncharacteristically passive) James Caan who's trying to deal with his everyday life being annoyed by his various tenants. Apparently the only one of them who actually seems to like him is a masseuse played by Jennifer Tilly, every other tenant either loathes him or is actively trying to harm him--Genevive Bujold plays a woman who is apparently making a habit of asking the cops to investigate his apt insisting that he stole something or other from her. (The cops themselves are like "yeah unfortunately we gotta question you again here") Anyways Tilly's husband is found dead in the garbage shoot, and before too long another body pops up, and then a third body, and we just might have a serial killer stalking the tenants of the building here. Caan who is increasingly feeling useless as a man (it doesn't help that he can't bring himself to exit the building--he has serious tremors just bringing the dumpster where the garbage bags lands from the garbage shoot around for the garbage truck to pick up.) takes it upon himself to try and solve the murders. This all leads to a somewhat unexpected twist at the end that i have to admit i wasn't at all expecting. The movie holds your attention well enough, but I didn't think it was especially good, although Caan it has to be said is trying really hard, and i actually think manages to pull off the role decently enough (but it is hard to buy him as a weakling who can't even defend himself against the ravings of a crazy woman as opposed to well the usual alpha James Caan persona) Anyways it was all right, but not all that good really.

This film is like the construction of a very weird and very bored kid on a rainy afternoon when the power is out and he can't watch TV or go on his computer. It's a misshapen entity made out of the cinematic equivalent of Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, scotch tape and the twist ties off of loaves of bread. Featuring Jennifer Tilly's cleavage and James Caan as septuagenarian beefcake, it's also one of those stories that only has about 25 minutes of basic plot, so they add in another 70 minutes of filler to make movie out of it.

Leonard Gray (James Caan) is the agoraphobic and mentally slow building super of a 6 floor apartment building. He's referred to as a concierge in the film, but that's only because this thing was made by Europeans and that's apparently what they call their building supers. Anyway, the movie starts out by making you think that Leonard is going to be the centerpiece of a tale that involves the multiple different lives of the building's tenants.

There's Valda (Susan Glover), the middle aged woman who's going a little crazy out of loneliness. There's the young couple, Eugene and Dolores O'Donnell (Bruce Ramsay and Maribel Verdu). Eugene is a bit of a handyman and is infringing on Leonard's territory. Dolores is a drug addict having an affair with another man in the building. That guy is Bill Cherry (Peter Keleghan), who's the sort of dick who has sex with his mistress and is completely oblivious to her disinterest during the act. Bill is married to Donna (Jennifer Tilly), a licensed masseuse. Bill and Donna have a daughter, Holly (Victoria Jane Allen), that Leonard occasionally babysits. There's also the token gay guy, Gilbert (Mark Camacho). At least I think he's supposed to be gay. If he's not the token gay, I don't know what purpose his character serves. And finally, there's the insanely angry landlady named Lilly Melnick (Genevieve Bujold). Her husband dies at the start of the film and Lilly basically never stops screaming at people throughout the rest of the movie.

As far as the plot goes, one of the folks in the building gets killed, Lilly yells a lot, Donna and Leonard have sex but not really, and some other stuff happens that has nothing to do with the big secret that gets rolled out in the last half hour of the movie. Then there's the big secret, which might have been surprising but by the time it finally arrived, I had absolutely no interest in anything or anyone in this tale. I won't spoil the secret, except to say it's one of those overwrought Gothic things that might have been believable in a novel 100 years ago but now just comes off as stupidly unrealistic.

There are two good things in Jericho Mansions. Jennifer Tilly is quite sexy and James Caan does a good job playing Leonard as the sort of little man leading a little life that other people never really think about that much. Even Caan can't hold his performance together, though, as the story turns into a cross between a bad soap opera and an even worse psychological horror flick.

Everything besides Tilly and Caan is either outright dreadful, like Genevieve Bujold doing 90% of her scenes like someone's sticking a cattle prod in her vagina, or ultimately meaningless, like the subplot of Eugene making Leonard feel threatened, which is touched on twice and then forgotten.

Jericho Mansions also has a soundtrack of loud, intrusive music that sounds like it's from a totally different movie, flashback sequences that look like they're from the old TV show Twin Peaks and CGI special effects that appear to have been done by a high school A/V club.

This is one of those films that isn't interestingly bad or entertainingly bad or amusingly bad. It's just bad. Don't watch it.

Worst piece of American crap I have ever seen. From the first 10 minuets of this film I knew I had rented a load of rubbish. I found the acting wooden and the script typical. Why does the US continue to churn out rubbish like this. I found it very hard to concentrate and ended up forwarding the film along.

I have to say that it's a very long time since I have seen a decent thriller/horror film come out of the US. I cannot ever remember seeing this film at the cinema in the UK, I guess that should have been an good indication to stay clear.

The sad fact is that British Cinema is going the same way. Bring back Hammer Films.

"Jericho mansions" is a severely flawed attempt at making a different, independent movie that combined drama and mystery. It is a very weird movie where the weirdness is quite gratuitous, most of the time, and it does not come together nicely at all. The story follows an extremely absent-minded janitor at an apartment building, who is the guiding character and the protagonist; the owner of the building, and old lady who also lives there; and the lessors, who are colorful characters in their own right.

We witness the various interactions among the inhabitants, including the janitor and the landlady. Then suddenly someone is murdered and there is a twofold mystery: one involving the janitor, of whom we know very little and of whom we may wonder why he seems so troubled; and the other involving the murder.

The plot is hard to follow because of the many distractions and pointless scenes along the way. By the time the narration reaches the final revelations, I was already bored by the confusing and very, very slow-paced development and the ending wasn't worth the wait at all.

On the positive side, I will say that I think it was a legit try and not just deliberately pointless imagery all thrown in together. And I also have to say that the setting was very, very well-done and quite mesmerizing, and the Jericho Mansions apartment block had a lot of iconic potential. The color palette is very imaginative and quite gorgeous, and it is very well used.

On the whole, however, I would not recommend watching this.