The Lunatic

This mind-boggling, often boring comedy/drama sex romp presents a disarmingly naive view of Jamaican life. It's centred on gentle lunatic Aloysius (Campbell) and the ménage à trois he sets up with blonde German tourist Inga (Wallace) and mad, machete-wielding goat-butcher Service Johnson (Bradshaw). They take to sex, then to crime, thence retribution. You could read the movie as a kind of upbeat reggae satire-cum-parody. It dances through all the major social and cultural themes: poverty, education, magic and animism, racism, class, religion, sexual politics, and finally cricket! The music score is by Wally Badarou, and the soundtrack sports such as Black Uhuru and Toots and the Maytals. The patois is easier to understand than in The Harder They Come, and Jamaica looks stunning in a touristy kind of way. A movie that asks to be laughed at.