Missão Romana

The original movie, made in 1986 and starring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel, is a little-known gem of an intellectual thriller, with a plot that takes numerous unexpected twists.

This "remake" (hardly that, since the title, basic premise, and name of the lead character are all that remain) is essentially a Sunday school movie made by hacks, full of pious posturing. It's pretty to look at, but utterly lacking in suspense, narrative drive, good acting, or just about anything else you might desire in a movie.

I am beginning to think that any movie with Valerio Massimo Manfredi's name in the credits is going to be very, very bad.

I saw the brilliant original by Damiano Damiani (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093255/) about twenty years ago. This is not a remake. Compared to the original screenplay, the story in this film is a joke in the best tradition of Hollywood, and it utterly does not follow the original plot.

This is a propaganda movie, a failed copy of the masterpiece by Damiano Damiani and a poor attempt to substitute real world values by thin air speculation and candy, pure Hollywood style. Nevertheless the movie has a value of its own, I have never seen Dolf Lundgren in a role like the one he took in this movie, and I could say that Monica Cruz play is not worse than her sister's, not to mention that Monica is somehow prettier than Penelope. It is a shame that Ornella Mutti did not participate in the original by her compatriot Damiano Damiani.

Sometimes it is a matter of 'giving up two hours of your life.' Then, there is what I call my 'Lifecycle time' when I have donated my time to exercise and so no risk of lost time over a bad film. After reading the mixed reviews I expected a Romanesque Jerusalem based soap opera and the film delivered big time in that regard. Perhaps it begins with the cool art work on the DVD cover where Monica's troubled countenance begs one to 'rent me.' As for the film, I found it entertaining Lifecycle fare. Nice location shots in Bulgaria and Tunisia, decent choreographed battle/fight scenes, very good role/performance by Dolph Lundgren, Monica offers nice Miriam eye candy and well done job by Daniele Liotti as lead Tito Valerio Tauro. Also enjoyed Hristo Shopov as the scheming Pontius Pilate. Bottom line: Better than expected, have seen lots worse but some will regret giving up two 'real life' hours to see it.

The basic motif to see it was Max von Sydow. Unfortunatelly, he remains the only one. Because, not being real bad, it has the unluck to be a grey one, easy to ignore, easy to critic, easy to see it as remind of Quo Vadis , for Ursus becoming Brexus, for Taurus. The story remains conventional and, not so good, totally predictable. The acting is like the story - without spices or some salt. The love story sounds nice. But it only sounds. The life of first Christians and the effort of poor Tito Valerius for conquest the truth are decent points and the presence of the two Bulgarian actors reminds The Passion of Crist, another reasonable good point.

Short, a Christian film, modest but far to be awfull, well intentioned, having desire to have some targets - the cast remains the clue in this sense - but not being more than modest and decent.

I want to comment on what someone already said.

The comment was upset at treatment of Jewish practice portrayed in the film. However, the rules on adultery and trials, well ... if you want to be upset, be upset at the gospels.

The gospels portrayed the trial as a crooked rush job. Likewise, the stoning for adultery (and in the past, rural areas did not always strictly follow the dictates of the law) was referenced in a favorite scene in the Bible as well. The Bible had no "backstory" underlining that really the stoning in practice was a last result and rarely done practice. We were meant to see it as barbaric, the crowd driven more by passion than reason (before Jesus came around to guilt them).

In fact, some gospels had various scenes that put Jewish practice in bad light. At times unfairly. For instance, the money-changing in the temple -- you needed that to allow people from all over to have the right sort of coin to give their offering. It surely had some bad flavor, but it was not just about a "band of thieves." Lashing out like Jesus did kinda suggests why some thought the guy a tad bit dangerous especially in an age of rebels and revolts.

If one wants a "historical" reflection of what "actually" happened, which honestly would be not a bad way to go, they wouldn't be as reliant on scripture and all. The conceit of this movie also would not really be possible, to be totally honest about it.