Recommended. Okay, Michael Bay, formula action movie with tons of non-sequitur action sequences. But so what. It brought a transcendence that lifted the formula out of its typical action emptiness and gave it some real heart and soul, something so many action movies just lack. It is an exploration of cloning ethics that bears directly on our current issues of the definition of persons and the value of human life. Truly astounding. It’s the story of some clones who discover they are being bred to harvest their body parts for rich clients. They are born and raised in a facility like cows and are lied to that there is a contamination on the outside world that keeps them locked up in their facility. But there is a lottery that you can win and leave the facility to go to the one uncontaminated paradise left, The Island. Of course, they are actually taken and harvested for their organs and killed. Here is some of the obvious pro-life rhetoric in this film: The company that makes the clones says, “It’s a product, not human,” when questioned about the destruction of such clones (read: embryos). One of the clients tells his clone, “You’re not human. You’re not a person like me.” So the definition of personhood is challenged as well, because we see that the clones are obviously persons who have been defined away as non-persons, much like the Nazis did with the Jews. It’s the power of image showing the attempt to deny the obvious. The pro-clone people see the clones as “Organs in a jelly sack.” And they keep them away from the real world because people would see that they are living breathing human beings, NOT products without souls. When someone wins the lottery to go to the Island, they’re called “Chosen” and this is made a very big point several times throughout. This is an obvious allusion to “Choice” the fruit or results of “choice” is the death of these people. There are some powerful connective allusions to other atrocities of man’s inhumanity to man in history. They are branded with a number, like those in the Holocaust, A black man mentions how his people were called “less than human” in history, and some clones are herded into a gas chamber, another reference to the Holocaust. These are the same arguments made by the Pro-life movement that the declaration of the unborn or clones as “non-human” or “property” is exactly what was done in Nazi Germany and the Slavery movement in America. And to top it off, when the clones are being created, they are in big sacks in fetal positions sucking their thumbs. Another obvious reference to the unborn. Of course for sci-fi to be able to deal with clones that are aged the same as their donors, they have to create a way to grow a clone unnaturally fast, so in this story, they take some tissue and inject human DNA into it and it enables it to grow to the same age as the donor. Whatever. They hide the humanity of the clones by defining them in terms of the “mass of tissue” that they start out as. The point is that the entire run for their lives that the clones are doing is a metaphor for the lives being hunted down by the predators of the pro-choice and cloning movements. We have become a predatorial society that eats its young to sustain its aged. We have become a monstrosity that is dehumanizing humanity, the necessary first step in genocide and atrocity to alleviate the moral guilt. Interestingly, there are some side elements about religion and God that are somewhat ambiguous. On the positive side, the cloning guy says the clones are the “holy grail of science. They have no souls. I will cure leukemia. How many can do that?” (Science as religion) The hero replies, “I guess you and God.” In other words, the old point that scientists try to eliminate God but end up trying to be God in their power. On the negative side, I think the cloning city is made out to be a bit like religion. The point is made that “Contamination is the one global threat” to keep the clones from searching and discovering their true identity. Almost like a slam on the Garden of Eden and God’s curse for eating from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the Island becomes a sort of metaphor for Paradise, or Heaven, and the hero says, “I wish there was more than just waiting to go to the Island.” This worldly, rather than otherworldly. Which really, most Christians would agree, but it is nonetheless a caricature of religion as pie in the sky. But then again, the clones are NOT told anything about God, which is part of the censoring. So when the hero clone hears about God, he asks his secret helper who works for the corporation what God is. He replies, “When you want something and you close your eyes and wish for it. God’s the guy who ignores you.” The clone hero’s donor says he made his clone because he got hepatitis, “a parting gift from God for all my philandering.” So God is mostly dealt with irreverently and negatively, making me think the filmmakers’ were trying to have morality without God, which really only makes them look foolish and hurts the consistency of the philosophy behind their story. When the hero clone tells his love interest that “the Island is real. It’s us.” I think this may be a humanistic turning inward saying, either, “There is no pie in the sky Island paradise, humanity is paradise,” or a more positive version: “we are the means to the end of others to achieve their island.” So the God thing could have been a stronger angle, but may have been deliberately downplayed because of their own worldviews.
Thriller
The Interpreter
Hard to recommend. This was a well done political thriller about an attempted assassination of some president of an African country while he is at the U.N. building in New York. Brilliant performances by Sean Penn as the cop and Nicole Kidman as the Interpreter who overhears the assassination plot. What I liked about this film was an underlying theme that was explored about the effect of revenge on the soul of the avenger. Nicole’s brother is killed by this African president’s henchmen, a president whose origins is as a Nelson Mandela type figure who began as a freedom fighter for his country’s people, but when he got into power, he turned into a killer himself, slaughtering those who were against him. Well, we find out about a tradition of this African tribe who, when they catch a killer, they bind him and drop him in the river, and if the survivors of the victim want to, they can either let him drown as justice, or jump in and save him with mercy. If they save him, then the crime is atoned for and the criminal has redemption, but if they let him drown, they may have their justice, but they will live with the impact of their decision for the rest of their lives. Of course, this very parable is what this movie is about, as Nicole discovers the president killed her brother and then she must decide if she wants to kill the president or let him go. A saying, “Vengeance is a lazy form of grief” is said in the movie, along with some other very clever lines. I think this is a very thoughtful theme. We all too often think revenge will get us justice, but we do not think about its effect on us after we do. I think that this is also somewhat biblical. For example, as I understand the Law of God, the punishments prescribed by God for most crimes are victim oriented, meaning that they are maximum penalties (eye for an eye), but not absolute, in that the victim’s survivors do not have to press for the maximum penalty, UNLESS the Scriptures mandate a punishment. So, for example, God gives the right for a victim of an adultery to press for capital punishment, but this is not necessary if they choose forgiveness. But other crimes, like murder contain the pleonasm, “Dying he shall die,” which indicates a mandated penalty that the State must enforce regardless of individual charges. Biblical law is victim oriented. A great Must Read book that applies God’s Law to modern day terms is “Victim’s Rights” by Gary North. Boy, talk about the confusion that is cleared up in legal jurisprudence if people would just use the Creator’s directions when constructing legal theory. Anyway, there is one caveat that I would add. That is, biblically, the victim CAN experience just retribution in state enforced punishment and walk away feeling good knowing that justice is done and crime is atoned for. The difference is that the Bible says this is to be done through due process. That is, the victim can throw the first stone as long as the crime has gone through proper channels judicially through the State. The State is God’s ordained means of justice, NOT the individual. This is where so many miss the beauty and goodness of biblical justice. Eye for an eye is not about personal revenge, it is to be administered judicially through the state. Personal revenge is sin, punishment through the State is God ordained justice (Romans 12:17-13:6). So many think that Jesus was denying this “lex talionis” principle when he said to the accusers of a woman caught in adultery to cast the first stone if they were without sin (John 8). But a careful look into Old Testament law will yield the fact that Jesus was REINFORCING biblical law, not contradicting it. You see, the men who caught the woman were not following due process, they were being vigilantes operating outside the law courts. This was not biblical. AND the Law said they were supposed to stone BOTH parties of an adultery, so they were not following the Law, they were being partial. Also, the Law said that those who engaged in capital penalties on others could not themselves be guilty of a known crime (Deut 19:15; Num 17:7). All this to say that biblical justice can be experienced without soul guilt if it is done through due process of law. So vigilante vengeance is not biblical but capital punishment through the State is biblical. So when Nicole has the gun pointed at the president who killed her brother and many others, she forces him to read his own words he wrote about justice before he came to power. It’s a powerful thematic moment, but ultimately did not ring true to me because we see this genocidal monster “realize” what he had done wrong, and I just don’t believe that these monsters ever do recognize such evil in themselves outside of a religious conversion. You see, without God, there is ultimately nothing but power, might makes right. Without God, morality is arbitrary. This brings me to the main problem I have with the worldview of the film. The U.N. is depicted in this movie as the answer to our world’s hatred and evil. As if the U.N. represents the harmony that all nations should have. Nicole says, “Words and compassion are a better way, even if it’s slower than a gun.” Well, the bottom line is that a gun is the only thing that will stop genocidal maniacs, tyrants, and maniacal dictators. There simply is no reasoning with such evil men. Neville Chamberlain cried for peace and harmony in our time through compassion and words, and let Hitler almost destroy and kill them all, It took the “gun” of Winston Churchill to save them. Some evil can only be stopped by force, that is just and righteous force. The plain reality is that the UN is NOT about peace and harmony among nations, it is about two things: The dismantling of US hegemony and global socialism. THAT is not peace and harmony that is bigotry, hatred and tyranny. Hey, the UN sub-commission on the protection and promotion of human rights contains such shining beacons of human rights violators as Cuba, China, and Pakistan, and THEY talk about human rights as their hands are dripping with the blood of millions? I think not. The Interpreter is unfortunately self-righteous bumper sticker propaganda for one world socialism, or in other words, Communism. Too bad, cause it was a well-written political thriller, as genres go.
Sin City
Not Recommended. This is a visual masterpiece of cinematography that more accurately translates a black and white graphic novel into cinema than any other movie has ever done. Splashes of color on a black and white canvas, harsh contrasts of light and dark, surreal landscapes, exaggerated characters. It is inescapably brilliant in this aspect. BUT it is pornography. And I don’t mean merely the sexual softcore porn that litters its celluloid like a two hour Victoria’s Secret Ad on steroids, but the violence is also pornographic and exploitative. This is a juvenile male fantasy, with all the women as sex objects—literally all of them tramping around in leather and lingerie AND shooting guns — the two male idols of the mind. And it is an orgy of revenge without redemption. The most extreme violence you can imagine contextualized as legitimate because it’s less bad guys giving it to worse bad guys. And for that reason it will do extremely well in the box office and monstrously better on DVD with all the myriads of teenage youth who should NOT be ingesting this filth watching it by the droves. And they wonder why kids are killing kids with guns in our schools. Its various episodes are all based on vengeance. Mickey Rourke is Marv, a killer who goes on a killing rampage of criminals connected to the murder of the only woman who would sleep with his ugly mug, a high class call girl. And because the ultimate killer is himself a sick cannibalistic serial killer who mounts the heads of his victims on the wall, well, it’s supposed to be all right that Marv cuts off the cannibal’s arms and legs and keeps him alive to have his own wolf eat him alive. And oh, yeah, the serial killer, of course, READS A BIBLE with a cross on it, once again linking Christianity with the worst of the worst in humanity. Religious bigotry at its finest. And this is the kind of stuff in this story that doesn’t stop. Another episode of Josh Hartnett as a contract hit man who mulls over the beauty and value of certain women before he kills them for his employers. Clive Owen goes on a murderous rampage to protect a town of prostitutes who are themselves murderous rampagers. But it’s all supposed to be moral because after all, it’s women beaters, women murderers and women haters who are getting their comeuppance. Bruce Willis is a cop, who is the closest thing to a good guy in this movie, but even he is a cynical nihilist just like everyone else. And his revenge on bludgeoning a yellow criminal monstrosity is supposed to be okay as well because it is in the defense of a little girl who was going to be raped and murdered by the “yellow bastard” as he is called. So this depraved little series of tales is diabolically genius because it cloaks its nihilistic evolutionary survival of the fittest worldview in a pseudo-moral context. It makes the villains all woman haters and woman abusers so extreme that the moral protective sense in all of us wants to see them pay for their evil. But the problem is, it is all entirely violent vigilante revenge outside the law. It is a nihilistic world of the flesh without grace anywhere. Even all the religious characters are frauds (A corrupt priest and a cannibalistic cardinal). There is no hope outside of sheer brutal violence driven by hatred. Now, I would not say that I do not want all these evil men to die. I do. In fact, I know some people whose young girl was killed by a serial killer, and I can tell you that the God of the Universe gave lex talionis (“eye for an eye”) for a good and just reason. Because rape and murder and certain other crimes can only be justly paid with by another life. BUT that God also dictates that it must only be accomplished through due process, through the law, NOT through vigilanteism (Romans 12:19-13:4). God says that the state is God’s avenger, not individuals. If you want a more in depth examination of this concept, see my article, A Time For Revenge? Vigilanteism and Movie Justice in A Time to Kill. The difference between this movie and a moral movie about revenge, like Man on Fire, is that Man on Fire acknowledges that inner lust for personal revenge that we all have for the wicked of this world, but concludes that it does not accomplish true justice. It begins with vengeance, but ends with grace. Man on Fire illustrates atonement and grace from God found in the midst of this dark world. Sin City exploits an inner sense of justice against evil into a rationalization for unjust violence. It is a religion of carnage, where personal revenge, not grace or justice is what accomplishes redemption. Sure, there’s concern for girls and woman in this movie, sure there’s self-sacrifice and even substitutionary atonement (one dies that another may live) and protective instincts for the “innocent.” But there is no transcendent context for these values. They take place in a Godless universe of nihilistic meaninglessness, of kill or be killed ultimacy. At best, this is an example where, as Francis Schaeffer would say, the unbelieving artist cannot escape God’s image in himself. These reflections of redemption are echos of the conscience in the writer, that bleed out, regardless of how hopelessly lost he is. Even the depraved lovers of violence know the universal need for redemption. But I would say that the dominant ethic of this movie is ultimately: kill or be killed.
Romans 12:17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 13:1 Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.
p.s. Oh, and by the way, I never thought I would see a movie that had more useless voice-over narration than Million Dollar Baby, but Sin City beats it hands down. I realize that was part of the translation of the graphic novel, which relies heavily upon thought bubbles and narration, but it only works half the time. The other half, it’s just telling us what we are seeing the character do anyway. I love voice-over narration, but this is the kind of movie that gives it a bad reputation.
The Jacket
Recommended with Caution. A thought-provoking postmodern film that uses the questioning of reality and dreaming as a vehicle to face our mortality and make the best out of life. But it is a dark thriller, with a couple inappropriate flashes of nudity in it. Adrien Brody plays a good guy Gulf War vet who is picked up hitchhiking and has a near fatal head injury when the driver kills a cop. Brody’s character, Jack Starks, has amnesia and is framed for the shooting, and because of his amnesia and bad Gulf War experience he is labeled criminally insane and ends in an insane asylum. While there, he undergoes some rather controversial “therapy” called “the jacket” that is likened to sensory deprivation by a behavioral psychologist, Dr. Beck, played by Kris Kristofferson. But the jacket experiences in some bizarre twist of reality, enable Jack to time travel into the future, where he meets and falls in love with a girl from his past who has grown up, played with swanky hardness by Kiera Knightley. Jack’s search to discover the cause of his death in the past by researching the facts while in the future has a very fatalistic edge to it at first, but ends up with a hopeful worldview of freedom to change behavior. What I liked about this film was how it portrayed Dr. Becker, the behaviorist and physicalist, who believes that our problems are the result of chemical imbalances. This whole worldview is shown to be the darkness that it really is, and it shows the toll even on the doctor as we see him always taking drugs himself to calm himself down. In other words, behaviorism and sociobiology are slave systems for worldviews, and they deny the strength and responsibility of the human will. And guess what? They are still creeping around the halls of our institutions. I met a sociobiologist when I did research at a hospital for the criminally insane. These social engineers, these “world controllers” are nothing more than Monsters in white lab coats. Or as C.S. Lewis said, they are torturers in the name of compassion because of their worldview that defines our beliefs or behavior as resulting from our chemicals. Therefore, they must experiment with our chemicals “for our own good” to get us “better.” I just read in a Wired article about a sociobiologist criticizing 12 step programs as destructive while he offered his instant gratification chemical solution to solving addiction, entirely ignorant of the human dimension of who we are. These Nazis actually think they are helping us. As Becker says in the film to Jack that he puts him in a bizarre torture device that it is “with every intention of helping you.” Jack replies, “That justifies it?” I guess you’d call modern psychology “Compassionate Fascism.” Another thing I liked about this film was its postmodern use of questioning our notions of reality. A doctor tells Jack, that “his mind doesn’t have the ability to distinguish between reality and delusion” and yet, the reality is that THESE scientists, these modernist social engineers are the ones who are deluded in their understanding of reality. I consider that to be a profound truth about our society that worships science and it’s high priests. I also like movies like this that make us face our death because it wakes us up to what is really important in life and whether we are using our time wisely. One of the inmates says, “I’m in here because of a nervous condition. Who wouldn’t be nervous to look at themselves?” In other words, this isn’t about crazy people, it’s using crazy people as a metaphor for ourselves. After all, we are all a bit screwed up, if we are really honest with ourselves, eh? At the end, Jack says a string of things, some of which sounded like gobbledy gook, some of which I caught and appreciated. He says, “Life can only begin with the knowledge of death. When you die, there’s only one thing you want to happen. You want to come back.” Very true. As the clock ticks down to Jack’s death that he knows will happen soon, he seeks to help several others in a way that changes their lives forever for the better. And that’s what makes this otherwise dark movie into a hopefully realistic movie. Jack discovers a woman’s life is going to be lost through her own negligence and he seeks to convince her that “things are not as bad awake as they are asleep” (Another obvious metaphor to the woman’s addicted lifestyle and hardness of life). And then the very end of the movie is the phrase spoken by Jack’s love interest, “How much time do we have?” In other words, we don’t have much time, our deaths are imminent, so make the most out of this life, live it, and love others, don’t squander it. Because Jack’s interactions with people bring redemption into their lives, this movie transcends the desulatory nihilism of fate that other time travel movies sometimes promote (such as 12 Monkeys). One thing I did not like about the movie was its negative view of God that they just had to force into the dialogue. Out of the blue, this sociobiologist, Becker tells Jack, “I’ll say a prayer for you, Jack. Maybe God will pick up where medicine left off.” And Jack replies, (that is, the hero of the story), “Sure you know where to find him?” This of course is the traditional nihilism that sees the suffering universe as without God. Later, Jack finds Becker at church. He tells him, “How does that help? God doesn’t remember?” Well, this is a great line of conviction upon a man who does evil to people and tries to escape his guilt, but considering the fact that they are linking it with a bad guy, that makes it a negative indictment of Christianity, not merely abused religion. Especially since the hero manifested his negative attitude toward God. If you don’t portray good religion in a story, just bad religion, then you are saying there is no good religion. The irony is that it should have been the other way around. The hero should have had some kind of religious faith in the dignity and freedom of man – because THIS IS THE ONLY LEGITIMATE OPPOSING BELIEF SYSTEM to the secular humanistic vision of behaviorism. Christianity is the only worldview that gives humanity dignity and value. It was not consistent with Becker’s belief system to go to church because sociobiology has no place for religious beliefs as truth. To them, it is a chemical abberation. The only way that would have worked would be to make the hero a man of faith somehow, so that the villain’s hypocritical pursuit of religious atonement becomes a validation of the truth of the opposing viewpoint, rather than just another jab at religion in general. But alas, you can only write from what you believe and if the filmmakers do not have redeeming faith, they would certainly not understand the true answer. So, it results in a humanistic work your way to heaven redemption of loving your neighbor. So, I guess it’s half true. But of course, a half-truth is still ultimately a LIE.
Hide and Seek
Kind of Recommended. A spooky thriller about a father, Robert DeNiro whose daughter meets an “imaginary friend” who might be a ghost or a something else, and this friend, named “Charlie” starts to wreak havoc on DeNiro’s life with some violent intentions. Very spooky, excellent first 2/3 of the movie. Very subtle spookiness played brilliantly by Dakota Fanning as the little girl. It’s subtle enough so you don’t know if it’s a ghost or what. But the final third isn’t quite as good when the revelation occurs of just who this friend, “Charlie” really is. All right. If you have any inclination to see this thriller, then don’t read any further, because I am going to totally ruin the story for you by revealing the plot twist. This is a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde story, where the main character, DeNiro discovers that he has multiple personalities and HE is the friend, “Charlie.” Well, even though this story wasn’t a great version of it, I still think this is a genre of movie that is a very powerful pointer to the Christian truth of our evil nature. The essence of Jekyl/Hide stories is that we have an evil side to us that we suppress and deceive ourselves into disbelieving. We think WE are not evil at all, So the discovery of the dark half is a discovery that we have deceived ourselves and we are evil. I like this genre in a postmodern world that negates evil and certainly denies that we are evil, preferring instead to belief in the inherent goodness of man or some such lie. There is this unsatisfied feeling one has when discovering that the hero is actually the villain, and he is evil and not really a hero at all. It leaves us groping and grasping for a foothold. Our whole picture of reality is shaken up and we don’t like it. It bothers us. Heros aren’t supposed to be the villains. But the moral thrust of this genre is precisely to upset that viewpoint to remind us that there really are no absolute heros (outside of God), we are all “villains,” that is, we are inherently evil and need to be redeemed ourselves. This is a case where I think the turning upside of the traditional hero story is acceptable. It is to tell us the audience, as Nathan the prophet did to David, “YOU are that man.”
A Time To Kill: A Time For Revenge? Movie Justice and Vigilanteism
TimeTo Kill.Article in PDF
The Machinist
Recommended with caution. This is a great moral tale about guilt and consequences of sin. It does have a dark “arthouse” edge but it has an ultimately redeeming moral to it. My mantra is that thrillers like this are among the strongest lights of morality in a postmodern world that denies absolute morality and guilt. Christian Bale wins the award for the most extreme commitment to acting because he let his body shrink to a concentration camp victim skeleton of malnutrition in depicting a man whose guilt over his past consumes him and breaks his life apart. Not only does it break apart his own life, but hurts others as well. He can’t eat, hasn’t slept in a year, and can only buy sex from a prostitute because he cannot achieve true intimacy with anyone. He becomes paranoid that people are out to get him and has confusing perceptions of reality. He is haunted by his conscience in the form of a guy who no one else sees, and the machinist tries to kill – He’s trying to kill his conscience. His crime lies in not accepting responsibility or consequences of his own mistake in an accident that led to a death. It could be argued that this is a bit weak because the hero’s ghost is not a deliberate evil on his part, but an accident. But on the other hand, it can be more universal because he is still avoiding his responsibility for hurting others, he is running not from a crime, but his responsibility in an accident – which becomes a crime. That makes him more of an Everyman that we can all relate to. He’s not a deliberate criminal, but a normal guy with a criminal spirit. Hmmmm. Sounds to me like Total Depravity. Brad Anderson also wrote and directed Session 9, which is another EXCELLENT SCARY thriller about self-deception and suppression of evil in the soul. The Machinist is a great moral fable on par with Se7en, The Addiction, Phone Booth and Collateral. I find it not coincidental that the movie poster has the artistic shadow of a crucifix over the main character. I only pray it comes from the writer’s own worldview reflecting the origin of this notion of conscience and guilt.
Ladder 49
Recommended. A slice of life type movie about a young firefighter. What is so interesting about this powerful homage to the heroism of firefighters (and by extension in my mind, police) is that it is not a strong story, but it is still riveting and interesting from beginning to end. It’s plot is a rather unoriginal story of the rookie firefighter joining a firehouse, falling in love, marrying, having kids, and facing the ultimate fire of his life. Somewhat episodic, riveting nonetheless. No conspiracy, no criminal element like in Backdraft, just an everyday hero. But it is very loving about family and yet the tension of that value with the value of risking one’s life to save others. It ends with a huge firefighter funeral, that although it does not refer to 9/11 at all, it certainly evoked such powerful gratitude and emotion in my heart for those heros who saved lives on that fateful day, while losing their own. It shows the humanity of these men, with all their faults and fun, but doesn’t degenerate into negativity like Dark Blue did for cops, or unqualified worship either. It’s about time we had an honoring yet balanced movie. And it has a surprise non-Hollywood ending that totally threw me. What I love about this is that it starts with the hero, played by Joqauin Phoenix, facing certain doom trapped in a huge burning building, and then the entire movie is a flashback of his life, which pretty much embodies the notion of having your life flash before you when facing death. I loved that about it. We need to think more about death, because it forces us to examine our lives, what is so important to us, what we are wasting time on, and so forth. The firefighting episodes throughout were just realistic yet interesting, no fantastic FX or impossible feats of firemen leaping 20 feet to safety and all the typical outrageous action stunts that Hollywood thinks we need to be satisfied. How refreshing. What I did not like about the movie is a couple of things. First of all, yet another movie that deals with death and the meaning of life and it totally ignores God. This disingenuiness is multiplied by the fact that the only reference to religion at all is the mention that most of them are Catholic and then they play a funny “confession” prank on the newbies. No Problem there. We all have fun. But then not a single other reference to God is made throughout the entire film, as if these men do not think about God when facing death, as if God is not relevant to Catholics. Look, God becomes relevant to atheists when facing death. This is a sad and deep lacking in the souls of the moviemakers that makes them try to ignore the real spiritual side of this job of heros. Another major weakness is in the lack of character arc in the hero. Actually, the lack of much of any motivation at all. We see him brood a lot, we see him struggle with his wife about wanting to take on more danger in his job in order to save lives, while she argues for the need to stay alive for his family, his children. Okay, good setup, but we never learn WHY he wants so badly to save lives. Throughout, he is a pretty two dimensional character, while the secondary character, the Captain, played By John Travolta, has more revelation than the hero. Though even here, it is not enough, we learn that the Captain follows in a line of firefighters in his family. Okay, that gives us a little understanding of where he is coming from, but nothing about the hero. So he remains too aloof and mysterious throughout the story. Someone that it is too hard to identify with because we don’t know WHY he does anything. Too unclear. But overall, great movie that elevates family, love, sacrifice, loving friendship and the heroism of firefighting.
The Forgotten
Not really recommended. This movie had a very mind bending reality premise about a woman whose memories start to vanish of her son who died in an airplane crash. People around her start to “forget” and evidence of his existence disappears but she does not forget. It’s all very creepy with some very surprising moments. Kept me on the edge of my seat. I was wondering what is going to happen next the whole time, which is good, very good. But regretfully, the film is a set up without a pay off. It has the potential to be a very profound inquiry into the nature of memories and human value, but it falls flat for me. Here’s why: we start to realize that there is some big conspiracy going on with the government and aliens. Now, hearing this spelled out sounds stupid, but in the movie they did an excellent job of keeping it ambiguous and unknown and therefore very eerie. But the problem is, they kept it ambiguous all the way to the end, which left the story very unsatisfying. All we discover is that the aliens are doing some kind of experiment, with or without the government (they’re too powerful to be stopped) and they are trying to understand the love connection between a mother and her child that would make her hang onto memories and not let it go. So what? What does that mean? We are never told. We never find out who these aliens are and why the heck are they bothering with such experiments in the first place? Are they all cold hearted bastards or what? There is no revelation of why the villains do what they do, or even exactly WHAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY DOING. How is it that aliens are able to erase thousands of people’s memories and eliminate hard documentation of existence? Why are the NSA chasing the heroine, because the aliens can just get her when they want her? (They have god-like powers and presence) Why do aliens erase so many people’s minds, but then don’t erase the minds of a police woman who is figuring it out? And what makes the heroine so special in the first place? Why is it that she is the only one who never forgets her child? Why can’t they erase her memories? WAY TOO MANY unanswered questions that make the movie confusing. It was “cool,” looking but it just didn’t make sense. It is all supposed to remain some ambiguous Twilight Zone X-Files thing, but it really just ends up being an unsatisfying confusing story. A cheat. An insult to the audience. They set you up for an important revelation and then never pay it off. It’s like they wrote this story based on a cool idea of a person’s memories being erased and then wrote themselves into a corner of nonsense. Oh well, we’ll keep it all mysterious so the audience won’t figure out all our story holes. Uh uh. No way, Jack. It could have been a great psychological exploration of our memories, like Memento or the nature of how we deceive ourselves like The Sixth Sense. The Forgotten fails to provide a profound human connection with the story because it remains unclear.
Paparazzi
Not Recommended. Rising action star’s new fame turns to horror when a pack of paparazzi try to destroy his life through pictures in Tabloids. This is a morally bankrupt film of vigilante violence. One good thing is that it poignantly depicts the moral depravity of paparazzi photo journalism with its complete disregard for the privacy and humanity of its victims. It shows the complete and utter distortion of the truth, heck destruction of the truth, engaged in by these kind of people, including artificially creating false stories through image placement and interpretation as well as actual “photo creation,” using pieces of images from different photographs to create a lie that looks like it happened. I loved the symbolic analogy of the hero’s car crash, to Princess Diana’s own death as the paparazzi get pictures of seriously wounded people rather than helping them. The fact is, these people are responsible for the destruction of lives they prey upon. The main villain Paparazzi’ rationalization rings hollow: “Everyone wants steak, but no one wants to date the butcher.” In a real sense, this is a truthful indictment of the public’s shameful insatiable addiction to this stuff. But it rings hollow in light of the journalist’s own personal responsibility. SO would they provide children to the child molester if it paid well? Interestingly, the creation of false stories is yet another consequence of a postmodern culture that denies onjective or absolute truth in favor of one’s own “created truth.” Ideas do have consequences. No doubt, this hateful contempt for paparazzi journalism is what drew superstar icon Mel Gibson to produce it. Ah, these poor demigod celebrities who live off their fans’ idol worship and then accuse those same fans of idolatry. But on the other hand, the story answers this Michael Moore Nazi style journalism with an equally hateful vigilante violence. It is one thing for the hero to protect himself, but it is quite another for him to murder, plant criminal evidence and plot the deaths of these miscreants, no matter how heartless they may be. When the hero tries to help the first paparazzi in a road accident, and decides to release the man to his death instead, the movie was over for me. The hero became a villain who murdered, not in self defense, but in revenge. Then the hero sets up another paparazzi to be accidentally shot dead by the cops. What they should have done is have the hero try to save the first guy, and fail to do so. This keeps him sympathetic. But then when the other paparazzi find out, they falsely assume the hero killed him and THEY up the stakes by trying to kill him or something. This would have placed the hero in the position of self defense. But instead we get vigilante violence, and another murder by baseball bat by this evil hero. Taking the law into one’s own hands rather than due process of law (Romans 13). Vigilante violence, no matter how psychologically satisfying it may be in the short run, is nevertheless immoral and requires redemption itself. Instead, what we have is Dennis Farin playing a bad impersonation of Columbo as a detective who knowingly allows the hero to murder and plant evidence and never takes him down. Yes, the hero uses the paparazzi’s own lies and deception against them, but I’m sorry, Mel, immoral irresponsibility does NOT justify murder. And this, coming from a man who just made the most important movie about Jesus, the ultimate sufferer of injustice, who did not open his mouth or raise a hand in vigilante violence. This Paparazzi movie, driven by and affirming hatred made by a man who made a movie about Jesus who said hatred was murder in the heart. It appears Mel has not been as affected by his own savior. I love you, Mel, but you need to repent from this.