Review of The Passion of the Christ (2004) by Patc. — 13 Apr 2004

The gospels were not written for the screen, so all films about Jesus tend to lack the plot and character development elements generally considered necessary for a great film. The one notable exception, which involved Jesus only tangentially, was Ben Hur.

Many Jesus flicks have been made, and recent depictions (Superstar, Last Temptation) invoke more realism, but now Gibson has trumped them all. Regardless of viewer sensibilities, Gibson is apparently the first filmmaker without a reading comprehension disorder to have read the gospels.

As with all Gibson films, the characters are polarized. And the film relies heavily on presumed knowledge from other mediums in its focus on the hours of Jesus's death. Yet the Pope himself found this movie to be an authentic depiction of events, and he carries a staff from which hangs the road kill Jesus had been tortured into.

This is not an anti-semitic film, although it is certainly anti-Pharisee. Apparently the Pharisee lobby is still alive, well, and very concerned about its image. Since the alleged events depicted occurred, the world has consisted of two kinds of people, those who find validity in the sacrifice Jesus made, and those who don't.

From a secular viewpoint, this photoplay comes across as obsessive, brutal and pointless. For the believers, most will see this film as a masterpiece. I choose to consider it so, as no one has provided me a better explanation of my place in the scheme of things.