Risen: yea or nay?
Reverence with irreverence.
For someone like me, I always go into christian themed movies with more than a little trepidation. I grew up in a religious household which meant that I saw my share of religious movies growing up. That is the very reason that makes me nervous when I go to see one. Let’s be real, most christian movies stink. They’re usually cheesy, overly dramatic affairs that have more in common with Nazi propaganda than anything else. I’m looking at you, God’s Not Dead. The real problem with christian movies is not the stories themselves, but how the stories are told. They focus more on the message than on the plot and characters. That is a huge mistake. What these filmmakers don’t understand is that if you take precious care on creating realistic characters with an engaging plot, then the message has a chance to shine through without it having to be shoved forcefully in your face.
Risen is different. It’s more akin to a Ben Hur than a Heaven’s For Real. It’s gritty with a world populated by real and relatable characters that don’t feel like religious caricatures from a Sunday School lesson. Well…mostly. Even though the story revolves around Jesus’ disappearance, Joseph Fiennes does a great job of shouldering the brunt of the movie as a roman Tribune who is tasked with solving the mystery of Jesus’ so-called resurrection before uprisings from the supposed Messiah’s disciples arise. What I enjoyed about this movie was that the characters felt genuine. Generally, when Christ’s apostles are put on screen in other films, they hardly ever come across as human beings with human flaws and weaknesses. But Risen understands that these are real people, not perfected saints. Case in point, there is a scene where Simon Peter freaks out at the tribune after he wounds him after a misunderstanding which then leads them to form a subtle hint of a friendship. They also show that the apostles themselves have no idea what’s really going on after Jesus’ death. Even though they were in Jesus’ inner circle, they are still bewildered and confused about the events transpiring around them.
My only complaint is that they drop the investigation side of the story too quickly before the movie devolves into more standard christian fare. This cheapened the gritty and more facts driven approach that made the movie up until that point engaging. The other thing that bothered me was some of the casting choices. The actor they cast as Jesus, Cliff Curtis, was terrific. In fact, I would say he is the best on-screen version of Jesus I have ever seen in a movie. He even looks authentically middle eastern! But herein lies the problem. I don’t subscribe to the curent wave of white-washing criticism that has been traveling around on the internet for the past couple months. In my opinion, the hubbub surrounding Gods of Egypt is wholly unwarranted and silly. Not to mention pretentious. However, in Risen, they went out of their way to cast certain characters with actors that look middle eastern, when there are some that are clearly caucassian. Like I said, I don’t mind casting white actors in what are supposed to be foreign roles, just so long as they stay consistent. With Risen, the inconsistency threw me off because it pulled me out of the experience.
Even with these criticisms, I would have to say that Risen has been my favorite christian themed movie I’ve probably ever seen. I enjoyed the fact that it felt gritty and grounded. They managed to find reverence in irreverence.
Is Risen worth watching? My vote is yea.
