Risen [DVD] [2016]

Let me say straight off the bat that, like the vast majority of people, I buy and watch films purely for recreation (i.e. I’m an armchair cinemagoer). Nevertheless, if I pay good money to watch a film, then I want to watch a good film, and not be told by some advertising nitwit that the DVD I am thinking of buying is a good film. I have been ripped off too many times by believing the less than honest advertising hype splashed across the front covers of DVDs declaring that the enclosed DVD is a great movie, only to be bitterly disappointed after buying and watching it. Since then, I have determined to ignore the advertising hype and make up my own mind if a film is good or not. I am not interested in the ‘message’ producers and directors are trying to create in their work; I’m only interested the the aesthetics of the movie-making craft.Before I wrote this review, I watched the film while listening to the running commentary by Patrick Aiello and Paul Aiello to understand what they were trying to portray in the storyline. A lot of their commentary I agreed with (and I have written this below), but there were some aspects of their commentary that I didn’t agree with, simply because I couldn’t see the point they were trying to make. DVD movies cost a lot of money these days, so I always try to be as honest and as objective as possible when reviewing a film because if the film is rubbish then I will say it is rubbish and then proceed to tell you why I think it is rubbish. You can then consider my observations and make up your own mind. By doing this, I may be able to save someone from the embarrassment of being robbed of their valuable, hard-earned money. This has always been my motive for writing reviews.For the most part, ‘Risen’ is a really good film; it is one of many religious features that have appeared on the cinema/DVD market of late (since Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ”). I have not seen them all, I’ve only seen about four or five of them (‘Risen’ is number 5), but of the few I have seen, they all suffer from the same negative drawbacks and symptoms that the other four suffer from; symptoms which I call ‘modernisms’ (i.e. characteristics of modern life which have crept into the storyline and destroyed (if only in part) the illusion of the time period the film is trying to convey). The vast bulk of these drawbacks range from minor nit-picking mistakes (which, I suppose, can be ignored) to major errors of glaring inconsistencies (which can’t be ignored), and can all be categorised into four basic parts: costumes; sets; historical accuracy; and spoken dialogue.The trouble with portraying stories from the Bible is that it’s not so much the case of the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, but more the case of the Gospels according to Hollywood! Unfortunately, this has always been the case (this is because Hollywood is more interested in making money rather than accurately telling a story). This has resulted in some really terrible examples of biblical storytelling. The movie-making ethos driving all of this has always been the same: if historical or scriptural accuracy conflicts with what is needed to sell the movie, then moviemakers will ignore historical accuracy and opt for what is needed to sell the movie because at the end of the day, producers and sponsors have to recover their financial investment at the box office. So, the unwritten rule is, if you want to recover your financial investment, you have to massacre a perfectly good Bible story! Not only will they massacre the story, but in some cases they will ‘hang, drawn, and quarter’ it as well in order to claw back their money! For proof of this, just check out the DVD ‘Noah’ (with Russell Crowe as ‘Noah’).Unfortunately, ‘Risen’, has not escaped unscathed from this negative drawback to moviemaking, but the good news is that ‘Risen’ isn’t trying to tell a Gospel story per se, but rather, it is telling a fictional detective story revolving around the frantic search for Jesus’ body after his resurrection; the Gospel account of the resurrection is merely used as the backdrop for telling this story. Unfortunately, in order to tell this first-century detective story, you have to provide some scriptural background information for your audience to relate to, and this is where ‘Risen’ falls down flat; its depiction of actual historical and scriptural events because in every case, they have got it wrong—AGAIN!The positive aspects of the film:A lot of time, effort, and money has been put into the production of ‘Risen’, and it shows! There are some terrific actors in this (Joseph Fiennes, Peter Firth, Tom Felton, Stephen Greif, etc.) and they all know their craft. Costumes, make-up, and hairstyles are all first-rate and really look authentic, realistic and convincing. Sets are also first-rate with their interiors looking suitably Roman and suitably Jewish in their respective scenes; colour rendering, photography, and camerawork are all excellent; locations also look authentic and convincing (the whole production was shot on location in southern Spain and Malta, both of which are on the same latitude as Palestine), giving the film a very authentic first century ‘feel’ to everything; you really do feel you have been transported back to First Century Judea.There’s a terrific battle scene at the beginning which is very well staged, choreographed, and edited. CGI special effects are also pretty good and effective. Joseph Fiennes is well cast as ‘Tribune Clavius’ (he looks suitably tired and battle weary); Tom Felton (of ‘Harry Potter’ fame) is also well cast as ‘Lucius’, Clavius’ doting, sycophantic, assistant; Peter Firth is also good as the politically frustrated and self-opinionated ‘Pontius Pilate’ the Roman Procurator of Jerusalem; Stephen Greif is perfectly cast as ‘Caiaphas’, delivering a tour de force performance that was particularly creepy and devious, projecting an aura of soft-spoken criminal treachery with an underlying feeling of threatening malevolence (an aura that could also be detected in the other Pharisees).The negative aspects of the film:I didn’t like the way Jesus was depicted in this film. He looked far too ‘ordinary’ and unimpressive both in His appearance and His character; He didn’t look anything like the special character He was supposed to be (if you are the ‘Son of God’ then you should at least look the part, if only a little, this is what distinguishes Jesus from everyone else). For more than three decades now, the prevailing philosophy among moviemakers regarding the visual depiction of Christ on screen seems to be to make Him look as plain, ordinary, and unassuming as possible (in some depictions, they’ve made Jesus look more like a dirty, scruffy, 1960s down and out Hippie who’s crashed out on skid row!); apparently the more ‘ordinary’ and dishevelled He looks the better. Personally, I don’t agree with this approach and I don’t think I will ever agree with it. Furthermore, the producers and directors tried to weave into the storyline the relic of The Turin Shroud. In my view, this was a silly mistake because no matter how battered and bruised they tried to make Cliff Curtis’ face, he just doesn’t look anything like the image on the Shroud!The character of Bartholomew (played by Stephen Hagan) came across more like a lighthearted, happy-go-lucky cartoon than anything else, which I thought was conspicuously out of place given the seriousness of the situation. I thought he could have portrayed his joy and elation over the resurrection a little more responsibly and down to earth.The earthquake scene was also wrong as well; the ‘earthquake’ occurred at the moment of Jesus’ death and at that time the whole region was covered in a supernatural darkness that was almost identical to night, whereas in the scene depicted in ‘Risen’ it was barely overcast and cloudy (doesn’t any of these producers, directors, or screenwriters ever read the scriptures?).The depiction of Calvary (or Golgotha) in ‘Risen’ is another major embarrassing blunder that every Christian would have spotted immediately! Calvary was a hill that had distinct sinister rock formations resembling the eye-sockets of a skull, and was situated right next to a main road artery leading into the city, not a cul-de-sac in a narrow gulley with an open grave at the back (where do these moviemakers get these ideas from?).The scene where Clavius and Lucius are searching through a pit of rotting corpses (amid a plague of flies) looking for Jesus’ body is another major historical blunder that would never have happened in real life; the dead bodies of criminals (together with the carcasses of dead animals and all of the other garbage of the city), would never have been left in an open pit to be covered with quicklime, instead, they would have been taken immediately to the local garbage dump, which was situated just outside Jerusalem in a long narrow ravine about two miles South West of the Temple Mount and about a mile South of where the crucifixion actually took place. This ravine was called the Valley of Hinnom, and it was here that the refuse dump of the entire city of Jerusalem was located. The garbage dump itself was called ‘Gehenna’ and was kept burning day and night in order to consume all of the trash of the city, thus avoiding diseases and plagues of flies. The bodies of the two criminals executed with Jesus would have been brought here immediately and burned (unless their bodies were claimed by friends or relatives), so the open grave scenes in ‘Risen’, fouling the air and stinking up the whole countryside, is historically inaccurate and pure fiction, and is done solely for dramatic effect. Interestingly, in scripture, Jesus used the rubbish dump of Gehenna as a symbol of everlasting destruction.I didn’t know the 10th. Roman Legion were all from London! Not only were London accents glaringly conspicuous, but they permeated throughout the whole of the film (for me, this clashed with the whole illusion of being in first century Judea), nor did I like the modern idioms that were used in some of the dialogue. I would have thought that the director would have at least had some of the main characters adopt a more suitable accent conducive to the time period the film was supposed to be set in.Lastly, I didn’t like the over-reliance on emotion and sentiment which the writers obviously felt they needed to sell their story. The film would have been a much better product if the director had corrected all the errors I have already pointed out and stuck to the detective story it was supposed to be, rather than have Clavius become an inadvertent convert and a supplement to the band of remaining disciples.Apart from all these annoying irritations, I actually liked this film. I thought it was very well acted, very well put together, well produced and well directed. It was a good idea and a new idea (a first century detective story) portrayed very convincingly. This film will more than likely become part of every Christian’s DVD library (if it isn’t already).Incidentally, American box office critics have criticised Joseph Fiennes ‘wooden’ acting. I didn’t think it was ‘wooden’ at all; far from it. I thought Fiennes acting was portraying a high-ranking combat soldier who was sick and tired and fed up to the back teeth of being stuck in a country (Palestine) he clearly didn’t want to be in (listen carefully to the dialogue between Clavius and Pilate, both of whom hated their postings to Jerusalem). Clavius was a combat soldier used to fighting wars all over the Empire, putting down major revolts and insurrections, not stuck in some sinkhole of a backwater province putting down the occasional tin-pot rebel skirmish [according to the Roman records that have survived, the two most hated places in the Empire Roman soldiers complained about were Palestine (too hot, dry and dusty) and Britannia (too cold, wet and windy). To add insult to injury, Clavius was now charged (by Pilate) to look for and find the dead body of a crucified criminal, in order to avoid political repercussions (for Pilate) and to alleviate or neutralise what Clavius thought was some sort of daft Jewish religious superstition; what was even worse was that he had to accomplish this in only a day or two before the body decomposed too much. Clavius weariness and frustration with all of this is written all over his face. I thought Fiennes acting was first-rate because he projected this apathy and frustration quite convincingly.

Brilliant film. You don't have to be religious to enjoy it.

Good depiction of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through all the pain and suffering in this film based in Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago, this one Roman tribune finally sees the truth of who Jesus actually is, and whose life would have been transformed from this point onwards. He saw the brutality of the Roman regime every day but witnessed Jesus unending mercy despite utter agony and cruelty he endured

As a Christian I felt that it game close to the Bible. But the added part of the Roman Prefect was not required as the story as written is fine.

Excellent story line well acted out all around great stuff to watch. It gave me a spiritual awakening.

Nothing to dislike

I am a Christian and really enjoyed this film.

Great plot