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The Passion of the Christ
ID:
2004
Comments:
Director: Mel Gibson
Screenplay: Mel Gibson, Benedict Fitzgerald
Producer: Mel Gibson, Bruce Davey, Enzo Sisti, Stephen McEveety
Cast: James Caviezel, Monica Bellucci, Maia Morgenstern, Christo Jivkov, Francesco De Vito
Genre: Art House & International

Running Time: 126
Aspect Ratio:  2.40:1 (NTSC Widescreen)
Sound: Dolby
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Features:
Studio:  20th Century Fox DVD Region:  1 Unrated
DVD Release:  Jan 2007 Discs:  (Cloud) []
Purchase: 
Reviews:  After all the controversy and rigorous debate has subsided, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" will remain a force to be reckoned with. In the final analysis, "Gibson's Folly" is an act of personal bravery and commitment on the part of its director, who self-financed this $25-30 million production to preserve his artistic goal of creating the Passion of Christ ("Passion" in this context meaning "suffering") as a quite literal, in-your-face interpretation of the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus, scripted almost directly from the gospels (and spoken in Aramaic and Latin with a relative minimum of subtitles) and presented as a relentless, 126-minute ordeal of torture and crucifixion. For Christians and non-Christians alike, this film does not "entertain," and it's not a film that one can "like" or "dislike" in any conventional sense. (It is also emphatically not a film for children or the weak of heart.) Rather, "The Passion" is a cinematic experience that serves an almost singular purpose: to show the scourging and death of Jesus Christ in such horrifically graphic detail (with Gibson's own hand pounding the nails in the cross) that even non-believers may feel a twinge of sorrow and culpability in witnessing the final moments of the Son of God, played by Jim Caviezel in a performance that's not so much acting as a willful act of submission, so intense that some will weep not only for Christ, but for Caviezel's unparalleled test of endurance.
Leave it to the intelligentsia to debate the film's alleged anti-Semitic slant; if one judges what is on the screen (so gloriously served by John Debney's score and Caleb Deschanel's cinematography), there is fuel for debate but no obvious malice aforethought; the Jews under Caiaphas are just as guilty as the barbaric Romans who carry out the execution, especially after Gibson excised (from the subtitles, if not the soundtrack) the film's most controversial line of dialogue. If one accepts that Gibson's intentions are sincere, "The Passion" can be accepted for what it is: a grueling, straightforward (some might say unimaginative) and extremely violent depiction of the Passion, guaranteed to render devout Christians speechless while it intensifies their faith. Non-believers are likely to take a more dispassionate view, and some may resort to ridicule. But one thing remains undebatable: with "The Passion of the Christ", Gibson put his money where his mouth is. You can praise or damn him all you want, but you've got to admire his chutzpah. --"Jeff Shannon"


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