by Holly Huffstutler

Created on: December 08, 2009   Last Updated: December 13, 2009

It’s hard to watch Mel Gibson’s 2004 labor of evangelical love without thinking that “The Passion of the Christ” sums up his entire ethos. I.e. “I love our lord and savior Jesus Christ…oh, and torture….both equally, although seriously guys, you should consider torture, it is freaking awesome…and completely integral to the integrity of the film, right?”

To a certain extent that is true, showing the trials Jesus endured before and during his crucifixion is integral to the integrity of this film. Unfortunately, the actor and Oscar winning director was so focused on showing the cruelty of his execution, that he forgot to tell the audience anything else about Jesus.

This seems like a gross (word choice totally intentional) oversight for someone who used his considerable Hollywood heft to write, direct, produce and widely distribute a subtitled R rated starless film about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ in order to bring the word of God to the movie going public.

Jim Caviezel’s performance as a man experiencing what looks like an unendurable amount of pain is very convincing but Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald’s script gives him almost no chance to portray Jesus as anything but a man in pain.

Interspersed with long, graphic, bloody, fetishized sequences of horror directed at the son of God (taunted, spat on, whipped, whipped with much worse whips, having thorns driven into his head by clubs, taunted, nailed to a cross, whipped again, taunted some more…) are short lazy flashbacks that  pay lip service to the rest of Jesus’s time on earth and his value as a teacher who brings God’s message of love and peace to the world.

These moments are not used to the best advantage by Caviezel who does not come across as a charismatic leader and brings to the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper all the zeal and authority of a quiet high school senior forced to read Shakespeare aloud in class.

The majority of his cast members are similarly one note in their performances. The disciples are worried and scared, Caphias is self righteous, the angry mob is angry, and the roman soldiers think the pain of the guy they hate for some reason is hilarious, meanwhile the Marys cry.

Monica Bellucci plays Magdalene, says almost nothing and only seems to be in this movie because she’s Italian, semi famous, and beautiful enough to convincing play a woman the Catholic Church has identified as a reformed whore.

Amidst the total lack of subtlety in this blood soaked bible of a film there are two performances that stand out as refreshingly complex and underplayed. Hristo Shopov as Pontius Pilate takes a biblical villain and molds him, with the help of the script, into an aloof but decent man forced into sacrificing one man to a mob he’s afraid of so Caesar won't execute him for letting the people rebel. As his wife (or mistress, it’s not clear) Claudia Gerini tries to help him through this impossible situation and is there to offer comfort to Jesus following one of many lovingly filmed brutalities.  

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