Complô Contra a Liberdade

Christopher Lambert and Ed Harris star in this tense 1988 drama directed by the superb Polish director Agnieszka Holland. The film is a fictionalized version of the story of the Polish priest Jerzy Popieluszko, with Lambert in the lead role and Harris as the secret-police captain set to assassinate him. This film captures the personal courage and solidarity behind the overthrow of communist rule in Poland. An extremely well made and sensitive film.

Every so often, you can see a mediocre film, and get a hint of what the film could have been with just a few changes. This is one of them; it features several excellent actors - Ed Harris, Tim Roth, Pete Postlethwaite, Joss Ackland (sorry for misspellings!) - but one unforgivably bad casting decision: casting the absolutely charisma-deprived Christopher Lambert as the Priest. To believe in the film at all, the priest has to be seen as dangerously attractive to the people, a charismatic leader. Lambert cannot portray that. He is one of the worst actors around, and he kills this picture dead.

Two other major gripes about the film: there is a scene where the priest is lectured by his bishop and then sent to Rome - or not, since he never actually goes. What was that there for? To show that the Polish Church was in cahoots - or at least practiced accommodation - with the government? Fine. But at least, SEND HIM TO ROME. Otherwise you have a useless scene that detracts from the movie.

The other gripe: I suppose there is some screenwriter union rule that dictates that if you have a movie involving a priest, an attractive woman has to fall hopelessly in love with him. What a stupid, useless, cliché, especially in a movie like this.

A young priest (Christopher Lambert) speaks out against the Communist regime in Poland and is killed for it.

Now, I don't know much about the "solidarity" movement in Poland, or what role the church played in this era of Polish history. But I do know that this film approaches the story from a very odd angle. Rather than focus on the priest, they focus on the spies... and one of them (Ed Harris) seems to have a conscience. Presenting the bad guys as human? A radical idea.

Also, casting Lambert as the priest seems like a bold move. Maybe I am sheltered or ignorant, but when I think Christopher Lambert, I think of B-movies like "Highlander". Granted, that's a really good B-movie, but still not the sort of dramatic gravitas you might think would lead to a role like this.

it is like a large plate with many dishes. a part can be tasty. but a little part. one of them - the idea to do a film about Jerzy Popieluszko. the second - the performance of Ed Harris. the not inspired part remains the option for Christopher Lambert as legendary priest. he is perfect for a precise sort of characters. this role is out of his circle. the other sin - the desire to present too much, too large. the hero is a symbol and a vulnerable man in a not convincing mixture. the fundamental virtue, more important than errors is the courage to present a slice of resistance from the Communist space. this is the basic role of this film - to say a powerful, touching story about the fight against sick political system. sure, Poland was a special case. but more than a case it was a model for many people from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria or Yugoslavia. after so many years, it remains a warning and a kind of boomerang. a testimony and picture of evil front to moral victory of sacrifice.

It remains one of the most powerful films who I saw after the fall of Ceausescu regime. Because the name of priest Jeryz Popieluszko was far to be unknown in Romania of 80 s.

The film has the gift to remind a martyrium and its genesis.

It has, in same measure, the sins of Chistopher Lambert in a role deserving more acting than good physical look and the fist of cliches , maybe for seduce a larger audience.

But its essential virtue is the status of cry in the last years of Comunist regimes in Central and East Europe. And, not the last, the inspired work of Ed Harris. One of films bz Agniesyka Holland . This last definition remains useful .