Movie review: Mess of a ‘Monday Morning’

Movies don’t come much worse than “Monday Morning,” a rambling, incoherent, ineptly assembled mess about a conservative Minnesota radio host who travels to Los Angeles and falls in with the homeless, the very same group he’s broadly railed against on-air. Writer-producer-director and co-editor Nat Christian may have something to say about tolerance and classism, but his message is all but lost amid an utter inability to craft a watchable story.

Star Victor Browne, with his soap-opera good looks and hints of acting ability, is left to largely stumble around in a fog as his character, said radio host and would-be senatorial candidate (don’t ask) Thomas Bach, upon arrival in L.A., falls victim to both amnesia and, soon, diabetic shock (again, don’t ask). Bach ends up spending Christmas week as a lost man of the streets, allegedly learning compassion as he befriends a clichéd band of societal castoffs addled by drugs, alcohol and mental illness — not to mention bad hair and makeup.

Meanwhile, Bach has a worried love interest back home (Molly Kidder), but that odd-couple pairing makes about as little sense as everything else here.

Christian, who also plays a crass vagrant fondly named Damn, further repels with his audio-visual depictions of the most basic bodily functions. You were warned.

“Monday Morning.” No MPAA rating. Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes. At Laemmle’s Music Hall 3, Beverly Hills