Short Review: Who said nothing good ever came out of a German rally?


Veteran television director Eric Till's film of Martin Luther’s life is a patient character piece well worth the effort. Till (Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace) could have blown over the details of Luther’s story and concentrated on the violent aftermath – I believe most filmmakers would have gone this way. Thankfully, he concentrates on the characters and their lives. When the violence of Luther's revolution does come, it is tempered by the motives of the parties involved thus giving it a dimension lesser films would have ignored.

Luther is one of those uncommon films that is conscious of its subject matter and the seriousness of its content. A lesser film would have found cause to be little more than an anti-Catholic rant. While most Catholics won’t be overly enamored with the story, I believe many will agree that the church was fairly represented.

The film makes certain to show the abuses from which Martin Luther and his followers rebelled. Till has the respect however to keep those issues from staining the whole Catholic religion. I found this surprising. In many cases, films showing a hero who stands alone against a monolithic enemy (e.g. Hero against church, Hero against state, Hero against corporation) will only allow the humanity of the Hero to be revealed. The massive organization is a blind evil beast that must be stopped. We have seen this for decades (watch any Spielberg film.) In Luther, the Catholic Church as an organization is not the problem – the political and financial desire members are the issues. Moreover, we are shown that the members of The Reformation were also power hungry. This film’s presentation of the humanity within the monolithic organization is striking. How often do we see films where a corporation is the bad player, but there is also the admission that the organization still has the possibly doing good works? Here we are shown that the oppression and evil are results of the choices of INDIVIDUALS acting on behalf of a larger group. This is a rare thing to see.

The film is well acted by Joseph Fiennes, Claire Cox and Jonathan Firth. Fiennes is a great choice for Luther. He pulls off the almost nerdy, yet passionate, monk. I was fond of his ability to show us a man who, while on a crusade against his superiors, is scared to death knowing they could squish him at any time. To profess the truth of Jesus Christ in the face of martyrdom is a demand of all Christians. To be confronted with it is unimaginable for most Americans. In my opinion, this is the most important element of the film and Fiennes is commanding in his scenes where he is forced betray his fears and tell the truth.

Claire Cox is a wonderful pick as well and I look forward to seeing more of her work. Her role of Katharina von Bora is small but she makes good work of it. Jonathan Firth and Alfred Molina also offer strong supporting work in this piece.

Overall, I recommend this film. I strongly suggest it to Christians who will find this to be a tall glass of water in a desert of Christian films. If all Christian films took the time to show Christianity through character and not bromides such as this film does, we would all be the better for it.


Related Reviews:
Christian films
The Last Sin Eater (2007)
Left Behind (2000)


Other Critic's Reviews:
Mark Reviews Movies
Hollywood Jesus




Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See and learn
to change the world from your couch

Labels: Alfred Molina, Bruno Ganz, Claire Cox, film, Jonathan Firth, Joseph Fiennes, movie review, Peter Ustinov

A well-paced look into one of the most influential men in history. Joseph Fiennes is commanding in the title role and portrays Luther not as some larger-than-life icon, but as a bookish man who combats his fears to stand against his superiors.

Labels: Alfred Molina, biography, film, Joseph Fiennes, movie trailer

Short Review: The mediocre raid.


There have been many attempts to express the torture American soldiers endured at the hands of The Japanese during WWII. Like To End All Wars, this film goes out of its way to show the brutality of the Japanese P.O.W. camps in an unfiltered and realistic fashion. This movie also shares another quality with that film, it is painfully slow. We come to get a glimpse at how low humans can drop when personal honor is cherished over personal morality. In this respect, this film is successful. The viewer does come to understand how bad it was for the prisoners. This film fails, however, because beyond this weighty point, there is little else of note.

This film primarily suffers from a clear lack of direction. The structure of the film is built from two stories that are split into three portions. That sounds fun doesn’t it? There is the drama of the prison camp where Major Gibson, played wonderfully by an intense Joseph Fiennes (Luther), tries to control his men while he is slowly dying of malaria. The second portion is dedicated to Margaret (Connie Nielsen (Gladiator), Major Gibson’s unrequited love. She struggles to remain free while operating a local underground movement and smuggling drugs to the P.O.W. camp. This makes up one of the two stories told in this movie. This would have been a successful production if this was the extent of the narrative. There is enough here to make a deeply moving story about the separated couple. Well, this is called The Great Raid not The Great Story About The Separated Couple - there has to be more.

Finally we have the last portion given to the actual raid. This is equally as interesting and potentially striking as the other plot lines in the film. Like the other plots there is enough content in this portion to make its own film. The raid section of the film holds some good content but could have been improved. James Franco and Benjamin Bratt offer strong performances although their roles don’t require much. It would have been better if the film had the time for character development and conflict. As it is, the raid is shoehorned into the film and the story suffers.

The central issue is that the plots have nothing to do with one another until the final act. While Gibson and Margaret go through their internal struggles, the raid is being massed and executed by people who otherwise have nothing to do with them. In a way it is like watching a movie on television and clicking over to another movie on another channel and then coming back. The actual raid seems to impose upon the film about the struggles of the suffering couple.

The piece as a whole is tragically disjointed. With the stories not connecting until the final moments and the complete lack of a centralized villain there is nothing pushing the story forward. We have a series of events that end without meaning, thus, no real reason to watch. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a story requires a central villain. This forces a thrusting conflict against the hero and is used to move the story forward. Conflict demands a question be proposed to the audience; “Will the boy get the girl?” “Will the raid be successful?” “Will the hero get his goal?” Through the conflict that drives the story the storyteller and audience learn the answer to the central question. This answer gives birth to “the moral of the story”. If there isn’t a notable bad guy, there isn’t a notable conflict and thus there isn’t a notable moral to close the story. This is a first class ticket to an unsatisfying ending.

While I can’t tell you to avoid this one, there are some good scenes and some fine acting, I’m certainly not raving about this film. It is lukewarm, proceed with caution.


Related Review:
Another P.O.W. Movie
Rescue Dawn (2006)


Other Critic's Reviews:
The Armchair Critic
CinemaBlend

Labels: film, James Franco, Joseph Fiennes, movie review, war, World War II