Review of The Passion of the Christ

You'd have to be a cave man to not know the storyline of this film. Jesus, viewed by us Christians as God on earth and..well..the Christ, is finally gotten rid of by the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate; the end.

Now I have seen all sorts of renditinos of this story. There is The Greatest Story Ever Told, Ben Hur, Jesus Christ Super Star, The Last Temptaion of Christ, and on and on and on. Because these films are about the earthly life and death of a Diety to 1.5 billion people, they all have a bit of contraversy.

So here comes The Passion of the Christ. Jesus, dispite the scurging, has never looked better. This guy is prime beefcake. I had no problem with this films violence. To argue the film is bad because of he violence I would argue back then movies like The Killing Fields, or Platoon, or The Godfather, or Saving Private Ryan, are all poor films since there is a lot of violence.

What happened to Jesus and thousands of other Jews at the hands of Pilate was appauling. Pilate had a long term as governor and crucified loads of people. The only liberalism noted in the Roman army, was the liberal use of torture, dismemberment, and butchery; all ladeled out with Nazi-like efficiency.

This story is not about being historically accurate though it is, by far, the most accurate portrayal to date. Sorry but it is. The violence in this film is a metaphor for how mankind deals with truth. Some people have called this movie anti-jewish. Well that is plain silly since Jesus was a Jew. I didn't get any anti-semetic feelings from this film. It is nice little film that trys to get you to put yourself not in Jesus position but in the Roman position. It wants you to see yourself as the persecutor.

My pastor was disapoionted that it ended the way it did. He wanted what came after. And for Christians the resurection is the more important thing.

But so what. I think it took skill to crank out a movie, that dispite being spoken in Latin and Aramaic could gross as much as it did. It speaks to the power of the story, and the skill of the actors and filmaker. I am not going to argue whether Gibson is a crank. His brand of super-orthodoxy is silly. But I can't let his faith cloud how I felt at seeing the movie. I liked it. So I give it an 8.