Two authors, both alike in dignity (and both played by Oscar Isaac), stand at the center of In the Hand of Dante. The first is Dante Alighieri, the revered Italian poet who penned the Divine Comedy in the 14th century — the epic poem depicting his journey through the circles of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The second is Nick Tosches, a frustrated and principled New Jerseyan author at the turn of the new millennium.
Don’t let the film’s fluid, handheld cinematography, ambitious dual lead performances, and cross-timeline structure fool you into thinking director Julian Schnabel has made a meditative, didactic drama about artistic purpose — In the Hand of Dante is primarily a violent, foul-mouthed crime movie about Nick stealing and authenticating a lost Divine Comedy manuscript for a black market dealer (John Malkovich). Along for the ride is a brutal, lascivious murderer Louie (Gerard Butler), whose murderous behaviour attracts the vengeful ire of Rosario (Jason Momoa), trailing Nick in a white suit and cowboy hat to recover his family’s treasure. It’s a strange, heady mess, made frequently appealing by the anchoring effect of Isaac’s performance, but its attempts to mesh high and low culture soon become baffling. Despite the goodwill the film generates from being so strange and unpredictable, its two-and-a-half-hour search for the pulpy sublime doesn’t live up to its genius subject matter.
