The Astrologer is an odd and uneven disasterpiece/egoploitation drama that will have you scratching your head and chuckling to yourself for much of its seventy-seven-minute running time. It satisfies the primary function of an egoploitation film in that it is the brainchild of an actor/director who had no business in front of or behind a camera. It also helps that the audience for said film was primarily the man who made it. In this case it was Craig Denney.
Denney stars as an astrologer in a carnival who is tired of eking out a living reading palms. He goes for the big score of smuggling diamonds and uses the profits to fund his astrology organization who counts the U.S. military among its clients. His downfall begins when he sinks his fortune into movies and tries to make his wife a star.
While this never quite hits the heights of say a Neil Breen picture, Breen and Denney seem to be kindred spirits when it comes to unconventional storytelling techniques. Denney has created a film in which mere edits and simple scene transitions seemingly don’t exist. One minute, he’s hanging out drinking wine in an American graveyard and the next, he’s in a Kenyan prison. A precious few seconds are devoted to a major character dying in quicksand while minutes are spent on a montage of Denny aboard a boat while The Moody Blues’ “Tuesday Afternoon” plays on the soundtrack (totally unauthorized no less). Then of course, there’s the totally random ending that will leave you asking yourself, “Huh?”
There are some lulls in between the WTF moments of inspiration. However, the film’s reckless headlong spirit is a sight to behold. The way it hops from genre to genre (it goes from carny drama to jungle adventure to a rags to riches story at a breakneck pace) is inspired, and the slight detour into meta territory is kind of bonkers. (At one point, Denny’s character makes a movie about himself called… what else? The Astrologer!)
In short, fans of oddball ego-driven independent maverick moviemaking will undoubtedly find something to enjoy here.
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