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With Context, ‘Passion of the Christ’ Could Have Been Great

By Pete Brooks
Spectrum film reviewer

Mel Gibson’s new film — a blood-spattered, gore-soaked retelling of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ — is not for the faint of heart.

Unfortunately, nor is it for audiences seeking nuance, revelation or any kind of understanding of who Jesus was or why he let himself be killed in such a grisly manner.

The film opens in the Garden of Gethsemane, after the last supper and just before the Romans come to take Jesus away. Like the Lord of the Rings sequels, “The Passion of the Christ” hits the ground running; if you don’t know the backstory, you’re just plain out of luck.

On a technical level, the movie’s accomplishments are beyond reproach. Shot by master cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, whose resumé also includes “The Right Stuff,” “The Natural,” and Gibson’s own “The Patriot,” every scene has the robust vibrancy of a Renaissance masterwork.

The acting is marvelous. You will actually believe a man is being beaten and flogged to death before your eyes.

And the direction by co-writer Gibson is old-school brilliant — he shoots torture scenes the way Bertolucci shoots love scenes. He should be contractually obligated to direct two period epics for every lame “Lethal Weapon” or “Mad Max” sequel he grinds out. This work puts him in the first rank of American moviemakers, and he will almost certainly be remembered come next year’s awards season — if his career survives the carefully orchestrated brouhaha his self-financed film has generated.

That controversy, and the question at the heart of it — “Is this movie anti-Semitic?” — has been raised often enough that it would be irresponsible not to address it. Bottom line: I didn’t find it to be any more anti-Jewish than it was anti-Roman.

It certainly wasn’t in the script, what little script there was. Even assuming the audience is familiar with the broad strokes of the life of Christ, in no story ever told is motivation more of a crucial issue, and Gibson’s screenplay doesn’t even skim the surface of it. Apparently, people back then (with a few notable exceptions, both Roman and Jewish) were just bad.

This film is more an indictment of the entire human race than any sub-species therein. Makes you wonder why Jesus even bothered to come on down to save us at all — as well as why he’s supposed to be thinking about coming back to try it again!

Besides which, all the talk about this film inspiring anti-Semitism ignores the fact that the real villains of Gibson’s film are the Roman centurians who gleefully torture, humiliate and eventually nail Jesus to a tree. These Italians make the Sopranos gang look like Spanky and the Little Rascals.

Gibson’s take on the historic villains Pilate and Judas is equally inflammatory. Pilate has to have his arm twisted to carry out the execution, which is totally at odds with the real Pontius Pilate’s proclivities from surviving records of the time. And Judas …

I can’t tell you what Bible scholars have to say about Judas’ moral responsibility in the death of Christ, but in Gibson’s screenplay, he isn’t really such a bad guy at all. After offering barely a hint as to Judas’ motivation for the betrayal, he’s portrayed as having the worst case of seller’s remorse ever; he even tries to return the 30 pieces of silver, he feels so awful. Only then does he hang himself.

Ultimately, “The Passion of the Christ” is great moviemaking, but not a great movie. Great movies must have great themes, and this film’s theme is too simply that Christ suffered. Really, really, really suffered. But that’s all.

Two solid hours of watching Christ suffer, with little or no context, left me wishing the film had more to say.

In spite of the fervent support of the evangelical Christian community, I’m convinced “The Passion of the Christ” would’ve been a better tool for evangelism if it hadn’t focused exclusively — almost lovingly — on Christ’s torture and crucifixion.

It’s important to remember that in Roman times, it was no great trick to get crucified. They handed crucifixions out to the people of the occupied territories the way the CHP hands out speeding tickets. The remarkable thing about the story of the Christ is — hello! — the resurrection, which Gibson acknowledges in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 30-second coda. “Oh yeah, by the way, He rose from the dead and ascended bodily into heaven, too. But hey, how about that torture … !”

In the end, I’d rather go 15 rounds with Mike Tyson than see this movie again. Walking out of the theater, I felt like I had gone 15 rounds with Tyson.

There was another film made on the same subject about 10 years ago that left this admittedly agnostic reviewer uplifted and inspired, and wanting to know more about the man and his sacrifice. That movie was Martin Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ.”

Scorsese’s film covered the execution in detail, too, but also included a great deal of the political, social and religious context in which the story occurred, making the film much more compelling dramatically.

Even more importantly, perhaps, “Last Temptation of Christ” presents Christ as both fully human as well as fully divine, thus imbuing his sacrifice with a much greater resonance than watching a guy to whom we haven’t even been properly introduced be brutally assaulted over the course of two excruciating hours.

See “The Passion of the Christ” if you want to test the limits of your psychological endurance, but rent “Last Temptation” if you’re looking for insight, inspiration or revelation.

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