The Last Supper
Director: Mauro Borrelli
Producer: Shawn Boskie, Ivan Cohen, Manu Gargi, Ken Halsband, Michael Scott
Screenplay: Mauro Borrelli, John Collins
Cinematographer: Vladislav Opelyants
Music: Leonardo De Bernardini
Starring: Jamie Ward as Jesus Christ, Robert Knepper as Judas Iscariot, James Faulkner as Caiaphas, James Oliver Wheatley as Peter
Production Company: Pinnacle Peak Pictures, Canyon Productions, Wellspring Entertainment, Skyrun Pictures
Country: United States
Initial release: March 14, 2025
Run Time: 114 minutes
I wouldn't say this movie is as cringeworthy as other modern films about Jesus which try to humanize him and his disciples, but it makes so many bad decisions that it leaves you shaking your head wondering why the creators even decided to make this film.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the film was the focus on Judas Iscariot and Peter, and some of the struggles they faced as the Last Supper was approaching and how they responded immediately afterward. But the dialogue and writing are so bad, that the entire concept is lost in its mediocrity.
For some reason, the movie begins with Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount, but as he preaches the disciples are shown off to the side not paying any attention to what he is saying, and instead just focused on entertaining some children and worried about what everyone is going to eat when Jesus finishes talking. This worry leads to the miraculous feeding of the multitude with a few fish and some bread, and the healing of a deaf and mute boy. Judas is always there to play the devil's advocate, questioning every decision by Jesus and misunderstanding all his intentions, while all the other disciples along with Jesus make sure to have a nice pleasant smile in every interaction with the crowd. The response of the people to the preaching and miracles of Jesus is always a bunch of handclapping.
There is no real sense of reverence towards Jesus. At best he is viewed as a modern day televangelist without the flair, though he presents himself as laid back, casual and friendly. What I found most annoying was Jesus often finds himself surprised and confused by things, which is the opposite of how Jesus is depicted in the Gospels, knowing beforehand all things that are about to take place and the significance of each event. Jamie Ward is horribly cast as Jesus, severely lacking in the charisma and commitment that many other films at the very least are able to get somewhat right.
After the feeding of the multitude, the movie skips ahead a year to Palm Sunday, when Jesus enters Jerusalem and goes to the Temple where he weakly overturns the tables of the moneychangers with feigned rage. The disciples are then sent to prepare the Upper Room for the Passover. Many events and dialogues are skipped between these events, and perfectly good dialogue from the Gospels is often expanded upon or replaced with horrible dialogues. It's hard not to view this as a high end pageant play, though in fact it is a low budget movie and it shows.
One of the worst decisions of the film is how they depict Judas and the High Priest Caiaphas. Not only do they show Judas being recruited by the High Priest, who is depicted as being envious of the fact that Jesus has more followers than him which makes him also frustrated with God for giving Jesus miraculous powers instead of him, but Judas is constantly being tormented by the devil and having dialogues with him. One could overlook his dialogue with the devil if it was a short one time thing, but it just goes on and on where the devil almost becomes a narrator of the internal struggle of Judas, which would more suit a stage show rather than a film.
Even though the Gospel of John makes it very clear that the Last Supper was not a Passover meal (ex. John 18:28), the film not only falsely shows it as a Passover meal, but it goes to some length to show the rabbinic Seder ritual as it developed a few hundred years after the Last Supper when the Jews no longer were able to offer sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem and the non-sacrificial elements of the ritual were elevated. Because the Last Supper was not a Passover meal, in the Orthodox Church leavened bread is used in the Eucharist, while unleavened bread is consumed only on Passover.
The tag line of the movie is "All are welcome at the table," and one way they try to show this is by opening the meal with a lot of laughter and joking, sharing fishing stories, hoping in this way to draw in the audience to an otherwise serious moment. The mood is broken when the feasting begins, and Jesus has visions of his coming suffering and crucifixion. Then the mood changes to a more serious tone. It was all a very lazy choice to try to humanize the Last Supper by making it lighthearted.
During the washing of the feet, the script leaves no room for the audience to interpret what is happening nor is it patient enough for Jesus to explain the meaning afterwards, but before it even begins the disciples explain the meaning, then it is explained again during, and finally Jesus explains afterward what we already have been told.
A flashback at some point would have served the movie well to explain the meaning and significance of the Eucharist. The movie begins with the feeding of the 5,000 in the Gospel of John chapter 6, but if it also showed some of the dialogue from later on in chapter 6 where Jesus talks about the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood, then the ritual would have more significance, especially with a movie that is supposed to focus on the Last Supper. It would have been interesting to also recount the last teachings of Jesus to the disciples in the Upper Room as recorded later in the Gospel of John over several chapters, and even show some of Jesus's High Priestly Prayer to the Father. The Gospel of John gives so much great written dialogue, but it is completely ignored and replaced with very poor dialogue, much of which is the dumb dialogue of Judas with the devil. At one point a disciple walks in on Judas talking to the devil, and when asked who he was talking to, Judas says he was praying to God and he should mind his own business. These are just some of the many bad choices the movie makes.
I also found it odd that with so much focus on Judas, they never showed the scene of Jesus being anointed by the sinful women, and Judas showing his stinginess. When in the film he is shown to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, you really have no understanding what the betrayal means for Judas nor for what reason he did it other than being recruited by the High Priest and tempted by the devil to doubt Jesus.
The primary motivation for depicting the resurrection of Jesus is to restore Peter as the leader of the disciples after he is shown denying Jesus while he was being tortured, and it is only at this time that Jesus gets any sort of reverence, but only from Peter. Then the movie ends with Peter preaching to a multitude of people, but the only thing he preaches is the Great Commission Jesus gave to his disciples, which was to preach the gospel to all people and nations, which Peter never actually preached in the New Testament. His primary message was rather to believe in Jesus, repent and be baptized, which is completely ignored.
Overall, The Last Supper has little value to offer, and does nothing to elevate the viewer towards a greater appreciation or understanding of the events and be inspired by them. It would be better to just attend a Divine Liturgy and fully participate in the drama of the events. It's only redeeming value is that the creators of the film wanted it to be inspiring, even though it failed. I would give it a score of 2.3 out of 10 in comparison with other films that depict Jesus.