The Constant Gardener; Flightplan -- November 2005

                             

TWO CURRENT THRILLERS

Two current movies definitely worth your time and money are The Constant Gardener and Flightplan. Let's discuss them in order.

Regarding The Constant Gardener, consider this passage from Genesis (4:8-9):

 …Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is
     your brother Abel?”   “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Scripture makes it clear we are to be our brothers’ keepers, and that’s the theme of The Constant Gardener. [Warning: Rated R] It stars Ralph Fiennes as Justin, a toe-the-party-line British diplomat; and Rachel Weisz as Tessa, his political activist wife who is out to expose British and US government corruption and especially the practices of big pharmaceutical companies. When Justin is sent to Kenya on a diplomatic mission, Tessa accompanies him and, unbeknownst to Justin, becomes involved in a secret crusade against a conglomerate using African people as guinea pigs to test its new TB drug. Justin is always puttering around in his garden, but Tessa is the real gardener who constantly tries to pull out the weeds of corruption everywhere. Justin at first represents a kind of Everyman who passively sympathizes with the plight of those in need but says, “We can’t involve ourselves in their lives, Tess. There are millions of people. They all need help.” Tessa responds, “But we can help these two people!” Tessa is fearless in her attempts to expose evil, actions which unfortunately lead to her death. As Justin tries to discover who killed her, he changes and becomes committed to helping his fellow humans.

Plusses:

• A great spiritual message designed to make us look beneath the surface of things.
• Excellent acting.
• Powerful camera work and beautiful scenes of Africa.

Minuses:

• Language—a number of four-letter words.
• Gratuitous, unnecessary sexual scenes of Justin and Tessa before they marry. These should have been “weeded out.”
• Onesidedness — While the movie makes us think, it can be criticized for presenting issues in a too-black-and-white fashion.

Bottom Line: The Constant Gardener is about something significant and worthwhile. Like Hotel Rwanda, it moves us to be active in our Christian walk.

Film Rating: R
My Rating: 3 ¼ stars. Not for children or younger teenagers.

In Flightplan, Jodie Foster stars as Kyle Pratt, an engineer who has been working in Germany and has just been widowed. Kyle is taking her daughter back to the US, with her husband’s body in a casket in the hold. Shortly after they board the plane, the exhausted Kyle and her daughter fall asleep. When Kyle wakes up, her daughter is gone. Kyle initiates a search that becomes more and more frantic when the daughter cannot be located anywhere on the aircraft. The flight crew, in fact, assert to Kyle that there is no record of her daughter ever having been on the flight, and a therapist passenger is called to console Kyle in her grief. So here is the big mystery: Did the daughter get on the plane? Does she even exist? Was she kidnapped by the group of Arabs who are on board? If not, is Kyle experiencing grief-induced delusions?

Plusses:

• A riveting screenplay, unique in that almost the entire action of the movie takes place on the plane and not through flashbacks.
• Acting: Compelling performances by Jodie Foster and Peter Sarsgaard as an air marshal.
• Theme: It’s hard to beat the intensity of a parent’s love.

Minuses:

• Language: There are a few instances of taking the Lord’s name in vain.
• Screenplay: Some have criticized the script as being full of holes. I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Bottom line: Worth your time and money.

Film Rating: PG-13
My Rating: 2 ¾ stars.