This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
If you try to please everybody,
somebody won't like it.
Plot Overview
A fisherman Peter—his name
means rock—on the Sea of Galilee narrates how he's still a
rough stone with jagged edges who has yet to be smoothed by the
action of the water. Jesus preaching on the shore heals a deaf-dumb
boy. The religious leaders observing from a distance conspire to
have Him arrested and forced to deny He's the Son of God, which will put
the kibosh on His implicit threat to their authority. Peter worries about
feeding the crowd, but Jesus multiplies loaves and fishes.
A year later Jesus makes his
triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He prepares to eat the annual
Jewish passover feast with his disciples in a specially
prepared upper room, which was part of a larger gathering. He teaches them
about being humble like children and proceeds to set an example by washing
their dirty feet—a slave's job—which sticks in the craw of
Peter. The religious authorities conspire with Judas to betray Him. He
overturns the moneychangers'—theirs is a royal
scam—tables in the temple.
At the passover Jesus changes the ritual to one
of eating His body and drinking His blood in remembrance of Him,
which He sees in the original of the sacrificial lamb
transformed. Judas leaves to betray Him. Afterwards Jesus
agonizes in prayer in a remote garden while Peter and the others
sleep. Judas leads a band of Roman soldiers to arrest Him. A
scuffle breaks out and Jesus rebukes Peter for his violence. Jesus
is carted away and Peter follows but denies Him—with a cock
crowing in the background. The authorities treat Jesus
according to the old Yiddish proverb, “When Sabbath-Nachmu falls on a
Wednesday, the Shmueh acts sensibly.” (Sabbath-Nachmu always falls on
Saturday.) Jesus is scourged, crucified, and securely entombed.
Then He rises from the dead, enjoys some roasted fish with his
relieved disciples, and lovingly restores Peter to his
apostleship, but Judas is a lost cause. Last we see of Peter
he's preaching to a mob by a lake.
The movie finishes with some
intertitles telling us it is more than a mere story but Jesus
and the events depicted therein were real. We are invited to
repent, accept his forgiveness and become his disciples.
Ideology
The real Jesus was controversial; He healed on the Sabbath day contrary to a strict interpretation of Mosaic law. The healing portrayed in this movie, however, was not done on the Sabbath, otherwise his disciples would not have suggested sending the crowd to town to buy food as that would have violated it. For that matter the one sermon given, to let your light shine, could hardly have been less offensive as the crowd was still at liberty to follow their own lights. Then in the upper room a long illustrated discourse on being a servant only singled out the master as an example, and there's another servitude that was avoided.
The licensor's alternate image text explains Noah, “When he drank some of the wine, he got drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers who were outside. Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it on their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered up their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so they did not see their father's nakedness (Genesis 9:21-23).”
(Gen. 9:24-27) “And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son [Ham] had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” When Noah woke up, he blessed as a pair the lines of his two respectful sons and cursed Ham's line—pairing Ham with his youngest son Canaan as was Noah's wont to go by twos—giving them servitude to his other two sons'. (Jasher 73:35) “For the Lord our God gave Ham the son of Noah, and his children and all his seed, as slaves to the children of Shem and to the children of Japheth, and unto their seed after them for slaves, forever.”
More germane to modern times is perhaps the lineage of Cush,
Ham's oldest son (Gen. 10:6,)
Cush meaning
black in Hebrew, having settled in Africa, some of his to become in
later years African slaves. Researcher Bodie Hodge confirms that,
“As a general trend, Ham is the father of many peoples in
Africa” (122). Dr. Ide adds,
“Ham sired four sons: Cush (translates as
‘black’) … and Canaan the youngest” (62).
From Shem come the Semites, and Japheth's seed spread all over.
Christ on the way to His crucifixion
needed someone to help Him carry the cross, so (Matt. 27:32) “as they came out,
they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to
bear his cross.” Cyrene a city of northern Africa (modern day
Iran) was where dwelt descendants of Ham, one of whom was compelled
to involuntary servitude by the Romans, descendants of Japheth, to
bear the cross of Christ a Semite descendant of Shem. This scene
was not shown on the big screen as involuntary servitude by a
blackamoor would have been all the wrong optics, especially as
Jesus made no objection but took it in stride.
Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) in his “Letter
from Birmingham Jail” replying to eight Alabama clergymen,
“paused … to answer criticism of my work and ideas
… Since I feel that you are men of genuine goodwill and
your criticisms are sincerely set forth.” He penned a whole
litany of complaints, rejected the counsel of
“gradualism,” and touted “the fierce urgency of
NOW.” He ends his letter with an apology: “If I have
said anything in this letter that is an
overstatement of the truth and is indicative of an
unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me.” Let's not
hold it against him; he was caught up in the fever of his times.
In the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should. Robert H. Bork in Slouching Towards Gomorrah (238) writes:
[Researchers] Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer … quote Charles Murray: “There's hardly a single outcome—black voting rights, access to public accommodation, employment, particularly in white collar jobs—that couldn't have been predicted on the basis of pre-1964 trend lines.” “That's pretty devastating,” the authors say. “It suggests that we have spent trillions of dollars to create an outcome that would have happened even if the government had done nothing.”
Production Values
“” was directed by Mauro Borrelli. It was written by Mauro Borrelli and John Collins. It stars Robert Knepper, Jamie Ward and James Faulkner. Ward as Jesus looked like he was posing for a portrait, the way he kept a poker face throughout. If the story didn't elaborate much on Jesus's teaching, his expressiveness here doesn't augment it much, either. Knepper playing Judas had snakes to add to his creepiness, not that he needed them. The pleasant surprise is Nathalie Rapti Gomez playing Mary Magdalene; she was lovely and wholesome and did not have or need a speaking part. There was no funny business.
MPA rated it PG–13 for violent content, bloody images and suicide. The wardrobes had a colorless authenticity to them, and the priest's displayed the required sacred gems. Violence was somewhat graphic but not overdone. The story was true to its source but not as detailed as the good book. A minimum amount of artistic license was employed. Runtime is 1 hour 54 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
“The Last Supper” was soft on Jesus, hard on Peter, spooky on Judas, and redemptive of Mary M. One should read the gospels to get a fuller picture, but this is a reasonable take on that blessed story. I don't suppose one would find a whole lot to argue about unless he's a Muslim who thinks it all contrived. A nice job, I'd say.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Unless othewise noted scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print. Software.
Drunken Noah scene depicted in a Civil War vintage woodcut, made after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German painter, 1794–1872) from his archive, published in 1877, and more recently by iStock.com/Getty Images. Used under license.
The Book of Jasher. Translated from the Hebrew into English (1840). Photo lithographic reprint of exact edition published by J.H. Parry & Co., Salt Lake City: 1887. Muskogee, OK: Artisan Pub., 1988. Web.
Bork, Robert H. Slouching Towards Gomorrah. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Print.
Hodge, Bodie. Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Pub., 2013. Print.
Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.
King Jr., Martin Luther. Letter From Birmingham Jail. 1963. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org