Posted on 02/22/2016 11:43:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Christian audiences have felt a little burned lately by bad movies on biblical subjects. But one really good movie can change all that.
"Ben Hur," "The Robe," "The Ten Commandments," "Quo Vadis?" -- who can forget the golden age of biblical films? But that was the 1950s, and this is 2016.
Biblically based movies these days often comes across as, well, less than inspired. Writers and directors sometimes play fast and loose with the source material, leaving out crucial details and inventing some bizarre stuff. Worse, portrayals of God often come across as flippant or even blasphemous. And that's just not something I enjoy watching.
Well, I want to urge you to give the genre another chance. Because a film hitting theaters this weekend proves that swords-and-sandals productions based on the Bible can still hold their own against "Ben Hur."
"Risen," directed by Kevin Reynolds and starring Joseph Fiennes, is the story of the manhunt for the corpse of Jesus Christ. Spoiler alert: They don't find it.
Fiennes plays a Roman tribune named Clavius. He's tasked by Pontius Pilate with crucifying the latest batch of Jewish rabble and self-proclaimed messiahs. The only catch? One of them really is the Messiah.
Of course Clavius, a good Roman military man, doesn't think anything of Jesus. When the centurion at Golgotha admits, "Surely this Man was the Son of God," Clavius lets him have it. Clavius is tough, and he's immune to Jewish superstition -- that is, until Sunday morning. For Clavius, that's when all Heaven breaks loose.
The tomb is empty, the guards aren't talking, and the Disciples of Jesus are spreading the news that He's come back to life. The high priest warns Pilate that they'll have an uprising on their hands if he doesn't put the resurrection story to rest. So Pilate sends Clavius on a grisly, CSI-style hunt for the body of Christ.
That's when our tribune has an encounter that shakes his pagan worldview to the core.
"I have seen two things which cannot reconcile," he says. "A man dead without question, and that same man alive again."
Everyone on our BreakPoint team who's seen the film loves it, not just because it's a respectful and riveting portrayal of the gospel accounts, but because it shows an unbeliever's crisis of faith when confronted by the Risen Lord.
In anticipation of Easter, I cannot think of a better reminder of how Christianity, as Tim Keller puts it, forces us to "doubt our doubts."
The empty tomb is the most startling fact of history -- something two millennia of skeptics have tried to explain away. But the evidence is just too strong. And "Risen," like a good detective novel, follows that evidence where it leads.
For instance, the Roman officials and Jewish leaders had every motive to produce a body. Yet they couldn't. And Jesus' Disciples had nothing to gain and everything to lose from lying about the Resurrection. But their transformation from cowards to spiritual conquerors testifies that they, like Fiennes' fictional character, saw something -- or Someone -- who rocked their worlds.
Joe Fiennes, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing on the "Eric Metaxas Show," told BreakPoint that he expects this movie to touch audiences in a unique way precisely because it invites them to examine these events through the eyes of a non-believer.
I think "Risen" has the potential to spark a renaissance of solidly biblical movies. But more importantly, I think it will challenge audiences to confront, with Clavius, the question that defies doubters to this day: If Jesus is dead, then where is the body?
Go see "Risen." And take some unbelieving friends with you.
BFL
Comparing it to the Passion is, IMHO, an apples and oranges comparison. The Passion was meant to be as historically and biblically correct as possible. Risen is speculative fiction with regards to a Roman military tribune tasked with investigating the missing body. In as much as he is a fictional character, so is his dialogue with Bartholomew, Mary Magdalene, Pilate, etc. As a period piece, it makes you feel as though you were there, and as fiction set amongst a historic backdrop, it is very believable. There is little if anything that committed Christians will take issue with, but, IMHO, the movie better serves the purpose of planting seeds among the skeptic/agnostic crowd.
Dogmatics and apologetics aside, it remains a tight, interesting story.
I was initially very skeptical that Hollywood could produce such a movie - but they did a good job.
I also admit that I am very uneasy with those who make images of God (Jesus Christ - God the Son), but in this case they had to do it for the movie. The film's fictional central character (Clavius the Tribune) stares at a very dead Jesus on the Cross, and then a week later he is staring at a very alive Jesus face to face. As they say, nothing is the same afterwards. And this also serves as a backdrop of the central question of: 'What think ye of Christ?'.
One of the tomb guards thought nothing - and went his merry way ignoring what he had seen.
The other guard was very troubled. He wanted to 'not believe' - but his eyes had told him something else - and he was trying to distract himself with the pleasures of the world (in this case drinking himself into a stupor) to ignore what he knew to be true.
Then you had the case of Pontius Pilate - a troubled man, but solidly going the way that the world beckoned.
And finally the Tribune. A battle-hardened cynic who came face to face with an 'impossibility' but dealt with it like a man, rather than ignoring it, or running away from it.
Overall, a good movie. My only complaint, would be I agree with my son who said that the Apostle Bartholomew looked like some surfer hippy type. Granted, maybe he did look like a surfer hippy type - and I'm an old grouch. But he was likable, and provided some comic relief. He just needed a haircut...
But all in all, the movie covered the items that the Apostles first preached:
Christ died.
Christ was buried.
Christ IS Risen.
And nothing is the same as it was before...
We're definitely seeing it this weekend. He owes me for "Revenant".
You didn’t enjoy the man-bear love in Revenant?
For the most part, I tend to agree. Most of the fictional Biblical epics simply use the Christ story as a backdrop. To an extent, Ben-Hur is supposed to depict Jesus and Judah Ben-Hur as two parallel men who take different paths. However, they never really get into the purpose of Christ's mission in the film. The moments where Christ appears probably only resonate with Christians who already know Christ's story.
Ben Hur is certainly worth reading in the original book. I agree that when Hollywood got hold of it for a movie, they screwed it up, as usual.
But that classic novel is presumably the distant source of this present movie. What matters is, does the movie do a good job? Evidently so, judging from the reviews and the comments here in FR.
“Thanks for ruining it for me. lol”
i am also forgiven for it.
amen to that
ping
Amen What a Savior
Let's see. Too long? Check. No real plot? Check. Director you have never heard of before? Check. Hollywood name actor? Check. Yep, has Oscar winner written all over it.
In all fairness neither of us wound up liking it. But it was his turn to pick so we went. And since I'm always dragging him over to the art houses on the Kansas side to see movies like Mr. Turner or Brooklyn then seeing Revenant was the least I could do. Definitely looking forward to seeing Risen though.
I saw this advertised on the marquee at a cineplex, and I wondered what it could be about. I am stunned to learn that unHolywood has actually produced a redeeming pro-Christian film.
I thought it insightful and a good story. I liked it.
The only network promoting Risen is Fox News. Being completely ignored by the other channels. One of the biggest “Oscar” movies this year, in addition to the high tech rip off of Richard Harris’ “Man in the Wilderness”, is a movie starring Cate Blanchett as a lesbian in 1950s and how society delt with her lesbian affair. So that one and the “Man in the Wildness” ripoff called The Revenant, which starred a computerized bear and was a 90% fictionized version of the tale of Hugh Glass, will be the big winners a the Academy Awards.
bump for later
[My problem with a lot of these “Christian†movies is the characters tend tp be a bit wooden,]
The latest Christian movies are very well done.
Wanted to see it this past weekend but couldn’t.
Planning to see it this coming weekend. Looks like it will be great.
Read the book first, the book is always better than the movie.
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