Highly Recommended. This movie is a documentary that is opening in a limited market soon. It is an incredible epic documentary that chronicles Ronald Reagan’s 40-year struggle against communism. I’ve seen it twice and was moved to tears both times. The first third of the film introduces us to the nature of totalitarianism in its various 20th century forms; Fascism, Nazism, Communism, and its leaders, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, etc. It begins with the quote that Cato would always end his speeches to the Roman Senate in 150 B.C. with: “Carthago Delenda Est” (“Carthage must be destroyed.”). As Cato knew the nature of Carthage to ultimately rise up and attack Rome again, so Reagan understood the nature of communism to relentlessly seek world domination at all costs. Interestingly, the filmmakers use the term “the beast” as the metaphor for totalitarian states. A monster that would demand complete worship and submission or else death. I asked the writer, Stephen Bannon, if he realized that “the beast” is exactly the same term that the Bible uses for governments that require such idolatrous devotion, like Caesar’s Rome in the book of Revelation, and he replied that he did not. So wow, what a delightful providential coincidence. The movie introduces us to the actor Ronald Reagan and his personal revelation about the dangers of communism in the 1940s while pursuing an acting career in Hollywood. It then weaves us back and forth between Reagan’s personal journey toward the Whitehouse and the various presidents that failed to deal properly with the Soviet threat during the Cold War. The last third then piles it on thick as we see Reagan enter the Whitehouse and how his relentless determination to stop Communism was rejected by even many of his own advisors. But eventually, we see the Soviet Union pushed into bankruptcy and ultimate demise, thanks to the Reagan Doctrine. The film then concludes with a very poignant and yet not overdone “coda” connecting the current struggle with Islamofascism as a direct analogy. Islamofascism is the new “beast” just a new head on the same monster. So we learn that the only way to fight our current battle will be to understand the nature of the beast as Reagan did, and to fight it in the way he did, with uncompromising force. For it is only force driven by righteousness that will defeat this beast, and we have Ronald Reagan to look to for a model. A true hero of mythic proportions. Call this “Ronald Reagan saves the World.” For those who cannot see the movie, it is based on the bestselling book, Reagan’s War, by Peter Schweitzer, which I also read, and highly recommend. It is a short book, very readable and simple for us political duffuses that have a hard time keeping all the names and dates and details straight. To locate theatres where In the Face of Evil is showing, see the trailer or find out when the DVD will be available go to: http://www.inthefaceofevil.com/.
