Pluskylang Great Film overall

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

MBunge 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.

Claudio Carvalho 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")

Vampenguin 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

sol1218 ***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.