Risen

For as long as I can remember Christians have been getting the short end of the stick when it comes to movies that revolve around their faith. For whatever reason, every movie that involves Jesus or the Bible always winds up being some low budget affair that features a has been star like Kirk Cameron and a bunch of his cousins in the supporting roles playing the disciples. The acting is always terrible and the production value makes the film look as though it was shot in the backyard of someone's house after a family reunion. I remember being a kid and asking my mom one day "Momma why is there a swing set behind Moses on Mt. Sinai?" Sadly she couldn't come up with a good response, so needless to say, I was done watching those movies from that point on. Ok, so I may have made that last part up but what I'm saying isn't that far from the truth. 

Sure every now and then we got hooked up with someone crazy like a Charlton Heston or maybe even a Mel Brooks when he played Moses in History of the World Part 1, but it wasn't until the looney Mel Gibson came out with The Passion of the Christ that studios realized they could make a boatload of money if they simply put a little bit of effort into it. Now in the end I kind of blame Marin Scorsese and his screwing up The Last Temptation of Christ for their hesitancy but that was close to 30 years ago. I mean M. Night Shamamamalong almost single handedly killed the horror genre by himself with his nonsensical babble yet he still gets the opportunity to make movies fairly regularly! So naturally one would think that John Singleton would have been given the chance to make a movie called Black Mary Magdalene at this point; but no he hasn't. Actually that's probably an awful anyway idea but I digress.

Risen is the portrayal of the familiar story of Jesus' resurrection but this time around it's shown through the eyes of a non believer, a Roman tribune named Clavius (Joseph Fiennes). Clavius is the man Pontus Pilate reaches out to whenever it's time to help keep the peace in his territory. So whenever the Jewish community has a bit of an uprising, Clavius is sent in to restore order to the region.

Well in this story it's Passover time and the Sanhedrin (the Jewish council) is out looking for blood mainly because a man from Nazareth named Yeshua is claiming to be the Son of God. Pilate ultimately caves in to their demands and orders for Yeshua to be crucified just so there isn't another uprising when his Emperor arrives for his visit. So he orders Clavius to go to Calvary to oversee things and to make sure everything goes as planned. And once he does that, it's also his job to make sure Yeshua's disciples don't steal his body over the next few days to help fulfill his prophecy of resurrection.

Well despite all of his efforts, on the third day, the body of Yeshua has disappeared and no one can seem to find the disciples. The Sanhedrin and Pilate are up in arms because this could lead to the birth of more of his followers and more trouble for the both of them. So the race is on for Clavius to find Yeshua's body before it's too late and Christians start to take over. But along the way, Clavius begins to see and experience things that shake the foundation of what he believes to be true.

Now I must give the filmmakers credit for actually putting a different spin on this rather familiar story and for keeping the viewer engaged by properly displaying just how intense the environment was at that time. The disciples were surely facing death if the Romans or the Sanhedrin ever found them and the weight of the world was put squarely on the shoulders of the determined Clavius.

Also thankfully none of the moments with Yeshua were overly sappy or cheesy. The only real complaint I have in his depiction was the fact that the guy who played the head cholo gangster in Training Day was cast as Jesus. I kept waiting for him to say "Hey ese, come to Christ!" Again, thankfully that never happened.

These movies aren't where they need to be just yet but they are certainly headed in the right direction. I give Risen a rating of FRESH!