This is causing some controversy among Mormons because of its implication that Brigham Young, who first led members of the Church of Latter Day Saints to Utah, bore ultimate responsibility for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, an 1857 event in which 120 men, women, and children perished.
As Young, Terence Stamp probably gives the most forceful performance, but he’s actually a minor character in a soapy romance set against the backdrop of the events leading up to the massacre. The main heavy, the bishop of the Mormon community in the story, is played by Jon Voight. The other two stars are Trent Ford, as the bishop’s son, and Tamara Hope as the proto-feminist daughter of a wagon-train pastor bound for California. The pastor’s flock had sought refuge on Mormon land because they were nearly out of food and water, though, by the looks of things, their supply of hair-care products remained bountiful.
Ford, looking fit and ready for the cover of Teen People, meets the virginal-looking Hope, and the sparks fly. The Hallmark-card dialogue, on the other hand, lands with a thud. “I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you,” says he. The movie Pearl Harbor looks like social realism compared to this. Voight, meanwhile, lends presence to a one-dimensional villain, but gets saddled with lines like “You don’t belong here. You’re not one of us.”
Part of the context of the massacre was the deep suspicion with which the church was regarded, which we can see even today if recent polls are to be believed. In other words, the church elders may have been paranoid, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people out to get them. (The church had clashed with the United States government over polygamy and other issues.) This early history of persecution is represented by giving Voight some ephemeral flashbacks, amounting to perhaps 30 seconds of footage.
Director Christopher Cain (Gone Fishin’, The Next Karate Kid) sees a parallel in the story with current religious extremism, and while that may exist, this sheds little light into the mindset of people who would use God to justify their atrocities. While the particulars of the massacre itself appear to have been rendered accurately (as far as is known), the movie overall is shallow.
IMDB link
reviewed 8/23/07
No comments:
Post a Comment