Multiple things can be true. Marlon Brando can be one of the greatest actors in terms of talent and performance there ever was and ever will be. he can also be, at the bare minimum, problematic, and possibly even a whole lot more. I actually think the audacity in naming the film waltzing with Brando is almost like nodding to the last Tango in Paris incident, which the film has nothing to do with, and couldn’t care less about.

This came my way through FYC season, and watching Billy Zane attempt to play Brando should have amounted to a little more, but this film is dreadful. I was crawling out of my skin trying to get away from this thing. I didn’t want to finish it. It is so deeply misguided, and plays like a really cheap knockoff of something else. Jon heder is brought in to tell the story of a developer who meets Brando while trying to build a resort, and ends up forming a friendship with the notoriously reclusive actor.

This year, another film was released about Marlon Brando from another perspective, the drama Being Maria, which takes a look at what it is like to co-star with a method actor during the Last tango In Paris shoot. I suggest more people educate themselves on this, as perhaps films trying to paint Brando as a hero to the environment and civil rights also neglects this whole other side of him. It’s the kind of desperate apologist look at a performer that one makes who is incapable of reflecting on the idea that just perhaps their hero is not perfect, and their desire to turn them into a generous benevolent being probably won’t play well to more than a handful of Brando worshippers.

Like I said, I appreciate his talent. He’s in some great films, and this weird cancel culture we live in shouldn’t preclude people from watching a film because of one person, since hundreds of people work on these things. But I have no problem turning off this hot garbage, with Jon Heder trying desperately to find any human characteristic or emotion, and Billy Zane doing an approximated performance clearly dwarfed by the use of real footage of Brando. Why would you use Brando footage to show how Zane sounds nothing like him? Bizarre.

I watched this assuming every critic, save a few, had berated this thing to death. it is one of my worst films of 2025, so much. So that if the film somehow acquired the best audio description, from my favorite writer, narrated by my favorite talent, I still can’t see this going above a 2.5 score at max. it is possible I missed something with the lack of audio description, but I picked up so much shit along the way, i may never be clean again.

waltzing With Brando is an offer you absolutely should refuse.

Rotten: 1.3/10