How It Rates: ***1/2
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving
Rated: R
Red Flags: Intense Graphic Violence and Swordplay, Mild Language
I saw V For Vendetta late in the evening in the middle of a Las Vegas getaway. Out of all the shows in Vegas I could've picked, I picked this one. I emerged from the theater spellbound. This is a film that I watched for two hours and mused upon for many hours afterward. I was still thinking about it when I drifted off to sleep in my hotel room.
V For Vendetta has a complicated Francis Movie Equation: 1984 + Phantom Of The Opera + The Zorro Pictures / The Matrix + the psychology and mindsets surrounding the Third Reich and the War On Terror. The film from the directors of the Matrix triology could be a warning picture -- a prediction of what will happen if we do not guard our liberties, trade freedom for security, and surrender to fear.
The picture takes place in 2020 Great Britain, now a facist state. The motto of the government conjures up images of Nazi Germany and The Wave: "Strength Through Unity. Unity Through Faith." A nationwide curfew is strictly enforced. Works of art and music deemed offensive by the government are confiscated. Television is merely the puppet of the government, censored and bloated with propaganda as news. Vans with listening devices cruise up and down the streets monitoring for dissent. And the public, comfortably numb in their homes and pubs, doesn't care.
One person does: a mysterious vigilante named V (Weaving), who wears the mask of Guy Fawkes, a man who tried to blow up Parliament in the 1600's. V is out to reawaken the public to what they have lost and make them rise up against tyranny. This involves a pirate broadcast, a few big explosions, and lots of killing -- mainly targeted at government officials. He meets and befriends Evey (Portman), a worker for that puppet TV network, who comes to find within herself another person, one with purpose and courage.
That's all you need to know about the plot, which is building up to a big day when something big is supposed to happen. A curiosity: the USA in this film doesn't exist any more as a sovereign nation, although it's not clear why. We hear a couple of references suggesting that somehow, the British took back the former colonies. Lousy redcoats. What is clear is this: the War on Terror has grown and spread, along with a climate of fear. In this climate, a repressive regime rose to power, much the same way the Nazis rose to power in the disillusionment, poverty and hopelessness of post WWI Germany. The film also throws in some other thought-provoking twists, which are better left for you to discover and find the parallels in real life.
In The Matrix, the Wachowski brothers laid some deep questions about our dependence on technology and our perception of reality into a world of CGI. V For Vendetta goes even deeper, though with less action and more political intrigue, all of which works, except for one scene of Weaving's character slicing through people with a pair of swords.
For a vigilante, V speaks with the tongue of a learned man, not some psychopath. He is a voice of reason, even if you do not approve of his methods. "People should not be afraid of their governments," he says. Governments should be afraid of their people." Still, you can call him a terrorist. His actions are violent and designed to incite fear. He kills a lot of people. And even if the ultimate end is eliminating the government's own campaign of repression, he is not a role model for your kids. But as we see all the time, one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. And if we suddenly realize one day the freedoms we love have been confiscated, a lot of us are going to want V out there fighting for us.
It's no spoiler to tell you that Parliament is blown up, just as Fawkes intended. This may disturb you. But in the context of the picture, it might not. It is all perception, and the Wachowskis push that question: is terrorism ever justified?
At one point, V lectures the British public on what has happened to their rights and says the blame for it lies with themselves. Twenty years from now, I hope like heck somebody isn't making the same lecture to us in America.
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