Frank Longo Member since Nov 18th 2003 86830 posts
Mon Nov-05-12 05:38 AM
34. "Worse, the religious overtones didn't even add up to anything." In response to In response to 33
>The religious overtones were bordering on becoming a bit too >overbearing though. There must have been 50 shots of crosses >and crucifixes. His farm house had paintings of praying hands >and the last supper. Common, everyday phrases like "god help >me," and "act of god" here are literally referring to god. >(And seeing Forrest Gump on HBO over the weekend reminded me >how religious that movie was - Is Zemeckis a born-again >Christian or something?) I mean, shots like Denzel and >Cheadle (who was also really good) standing there with the >church with no steeple in the background the whole time were >really on-the-nose.
*SPOILERS*
If you're going to make this a movie full of Christian symbolism, you should be able to identify why you're using it. Denzel is an atheist at the beginning... so God helps him sober up? They don't specify. Denzel finds God through the sobriety which he finds on his own? They don't specify. There's not even a clear religious moment during his "breakthrough" or during his epilogue, really. Unless Denzel mentions finding Christ in the jail, but by that point my eyes had rolled so hard that maybe I missed it. There just seemed to be no clear reason for all of the religious symbolism other than "religious symbolism is deep, man." Which irritated me.