This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Blacklights Matter
Plot Overview
Alfred Hitchcock introduced the concept of a MacGuffin, an object that drives the plot but is itself of secondary importance. In BL a news story waiting to be discovered is one such device. Washington News Cycles editor Drew Hawthorne (Tim Draxl) tells journalist Mira Jones (Emmy Raver-Lampman) that her story is long on enthusiasm but short on facts. She needs to, "take note of the obvious and then scrutinize what the obvious obscures, like an UV light illuminates what the naked eye can't see."
Travis Block (Liam Neeson) is a fixer
working directly for FBI Director Gabriel Robinson (Aidan Quinn.)
His specialty is to recover, physically and mentally, deep undercover
agents in a fix. We see him in action twice. Once is a rescue of Agent
Helen Davidson (Yael Stone) who got sloppy after spending two years
in a conclave of “racist bastards.” The other is an attempted
rehabilitation of agent Dusty Crane (Taylor John Smith) who'd
infiltrated the “millennial soapbox crowd” and fallen
in love with their charismatic spokesperson, “the
voice of her generation,” Sofia Flores (Mel Jarnson.) [The agents might have lasted longer
in each other's place.]
- Equal pay for women
- Racial equality for all people
- Health care for everyone
- Avoidance of climate disaster
- Security from debilitating financial hardship.
Her message was long on enthusiasm but
short on buttressing. The FBI director went off the rails after the
female influence from his stay-at-home wife passed away. Travis's
granddaughter Natalie (newcomer Gabriella Sengos) attended a
segregated preschool. Sofia's health took a fatal turn for lack of
pedestrian vigilance. Travis's muscle car burned gas & laid rubber
like mad without any repercussion, whereas the Bottom Rock
County Sheriff car was turned into Swiss cheese just parked there.
And the rednecks themselves lived contentedly as poor white trash.
Oh, well.
What's ironic is those grubby throwbacks have history backing them up when the plot emphasizing history throughout touches base with them. It's Travis's history as a failed father & husband, which motivates him to try harder at being a good grandfather. Mira's humble beginnings motivate her to strive for success. She suggests to Drew that he tape his distracting soccer matches and watch them later at home after the outcome is history. Dusty brings his final showdown to an exhibit of classic cars at the Modern History Museum. The rednecks fly the Confederate flag. And to top it off, Gabe and Travis share history from Vietnam where the latter's misbehavior with their drunken commander made him beholden to the former who covered for him. This last parallels an historical event that's not lost on Bible thumpers.
Ideology
Natalie's preschool displays a couple
giraffes on the wall, Noah and his ark being a perennial favorite
with children. Part of Noah's history resonates with the Vietnam incident
recounted above and laced with racism.
For those not settled in the sands of
time, I offer this remedial history lesson, with apologies to those
who don't need it. The biblical story is widely known of Adam &
Eve's temptation and fall in the Garden of Eden, how the woman ate
the forbidden fruit and gave it to her husband to eat (Gen. 3:6), God responding by increasing
the severity of the woman's childbirth pains (Gen. 3:16) and making man's toil onerous
(Gen. 3:17-19.) What is less well
known—except in places like the Bible Belt—is a redo of
sorts to ameliorate man's difficult labor. Noah's father Lamech had
(Gen. 5:29) “called his name Noah,
saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of
our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.”
They still had to follow the earlier template to get a reprieve. Instead
of the forbidden tree to be respected by the first couple, there was
old man Noah whose work break was to be respected by his three sons.
(Gen. 6:10) “And Noah begat
three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” They formed themselves
into two pairs: the eldest Shem & Japheth, and the youngest Ham
paired with his own son Canaan making the numbers even. In the Genesis
account of the Flood, is a mystery woman, the mother of Ham. (Gen. 9:18-19) “And the sons of
Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth:
and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah:
and of them was the whole earth overspread.” Let's look again
at Noah's story (Jasher 5:14-17):
“And the Lord said unto Noah, Take unto thee a wife, and beget children, for I have seen thee righteous before me in this generation. And thou shalt raise up seed, and thy children with thee, in the midst of the earth; and Noah went and took a wife, and he chose Naamah the daughter of Enoch, and she was five hundred and eighty years old. And Noah was four hundred and ninety-eight years old, when he took Naamah for a wife. And Naamah conceived and bare a son, and he called his name Japheth, saying, God has enlarged me in the earth; and she conceived again and bare a son, and he called his name Shem, saying, God has made me a remnant, to raise up seed in the midst of the earth.”
Shem and Japheth were full brothers, Ham was born at a later date (the youngest, see Gen. 9:24) perhaps from a different mother. Noah's wife was older than he was. Perhaps at 580+ years she was no longer able to bear children after the first two. She didn't have any more after the flood, even though it was a time to repopulate the earth. Maybe she stopped bearing before the flood. Ham could then have been stepbrother of the other two.
Researcher Mark DeWayne Combs posits that, “Although Jasher specifically references the births of Japheth and Shem, there is no such reference to the birth of Ham. … that Ham may have been much younger than his brothers and that he may have had a different mother” (389). Combs also observes, “Fathering a child, particularly a son, through a handmaiden or servant girl would not have been an uncommon or forbidden practice in that time period” (165). Historian Kenneth M. Stampp remarks that “Apologists for slavery traced the history of servitude back to the dawn of civilization and showed that it had always existed in some form until their own day” (14).
Come the deluge and the ark's passengers could well be a model for, (James 5:13) “Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.” There was undoubtedly a lot of distress on their voyage occasioning a lot of prayer, and their eventual landfall would have been accompanied by much celebration.
When (Jasher 6:40-41) “they all went out from the ark, they went and returned every one to his way and to his place, and Noah and his sons dwelt in the land.” They'd been cooped up together in the ark, so now they spread out somewhat according to some preestablished pecking order. God (Jasher 6:42) “said unto them, Be fruitful and fill all the earth; become strong.” To become strong meant, among other things, taking their needed medication when sick, along the lines of, (James 5:14) “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” Canaan's elders would have been his father Ham and grandfather Noah. Oil in Bible times was a medication as was, (1Tim. 5:23) “Drink[ing] no longer water, but [to] use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.” Grapes only grow in the summer, but once they're fermented, the wine can be stored. Noah got into the store to set the example for a work break, establishing period(s) of rest from hard work per Lamech's prediction. By chance or design it interfered—it had to inconvenience someone—with Ham's youngest son Canaan's need, and Ham could well have been the low-status brother from another mother.
Instead of the wily serpent we had Noah's wife as an on-the-spot influencer, who since she isn't mentioned, did well incurring no rebuke. She would have made herself scarce giving Noah some space to relax when he started drinking. She then went to visit Ham to smooth over this setback, to advise him to water down the old supply of wine, or whatever. Ham showed up shortly thereafter to check it out. He fell to temptation by mocking his dad to his two brothers, but they would have none of it. This is parallel to Eve earlier failing first then offering the fruit to Adam who accepted it, but here the older brothers did not go along with Ham, so we'd expect them to receive a blessing rather than a curse such as it was. The distribution of labor had to be readjusted on account of the new workers' holidays, and Ham for his insolence left himself and his family line open to taking up the slack. Depicted below is that scene rendered 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.
The alternate image text by licensor iStock.com/Getty Images explains what happened here to Noah and his fermented grapes: “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).” They covered the old man to prevent him from catching a chill as it was no longer summer.
Ham had put himself in jeopardy according to, (Prov. 30:17) “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.” Especially pertinent in this case is Noah's control over the animals including the raven (Gen. 8:7) although Proverbs often gives general principles rather than specific results. Nevertheless, there is precedent when some kids mocked a man of God for not having a covering of hair on his head and they got mauled by beasts. (2Kings 2:23-24) “And … as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”
There's a parity of eye loss and servitude
given in (Exodus 21:26) “And
if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that
it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.” Ham
and his line—represented by Canaan in his lineage—could
be given servitude rather than mutilation. This would be in keeping
with the sentiment of Job in, (Job 31:7-8) “If my step hath turned
out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any
blot hath cleaved to mine hands; Then let me sow, and let another
eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out.” In that woodcut-derived
picture above we see Ham after disregarding his mom's caution, checking
up on his dad, getting carried away by an eyeful of the dishabille
inebriate, and gesturing with his hands. If he were to “sow,
and another eat” and his “offspring be rooted out,”
that would mean him becoming a slave and his offspring being
carried away in slavery. Okay.
The Bible's account leans towards the latter. (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—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.”
Ham's youngest son Canaan is the particularly noted recipient of the punishment. Later when the Israelis invaded the promised land, the Canaanites were due for destruction, but the Gibeonite branch (the Hivites of Joshua 11:19 & Gen. 10:15-17) did a deal with Joshua who was the Jewish leader. They'd heard what happened to other Canaanite tribes, so they sent ambassadors dressed as if they'd come from a long journey (Joshua 9:3-6) and persuaded Joshua to make a league with this distant tribe. When it was discovered they'd tricked Joshua into sparing them, (Joshua 9:24-27) he made them bondmen, which was more to their liking. If this trick is indicative of the character of the original Canaan, he might well have been malingering to get out of his chores, which would also help explain Noah's hesitation to coddle him with wine. And when it came time to deal with the sin, it affected the whole line of Ham.
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 to become in later years African-American 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).
Production Values
“” (2022) was directed by Richard Williams. Its screenplay was written by Nick May based on a story by Mark Williams and Brandon Reavis. It stars Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn and Taylor John Smith. Acting was superior all around. Especially impressive as an initial character was a moll played by Yael Stone who was trapped in a trailer so her exposure was limited to her distressed face seen through a broken window, her quaking voice heard with pauses, and one brief body shot (“Stay low.”) Yet she turned herself into a such a sympathetic character that it helped the audience invest in the rest as well.
MPAA rated it PG–13 for strong violence, action and language. It has a running time of 1¾ hours. The cinematography was creative and the pace even. Subjects were rotated. The aging hero could still cut the mustard. The story was not burdened with extraneous subplots.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
Here's a morality tale with lines, fences and consequences given with little detail and tied up with a deus ex machina. There's no way it's going to change anyone's position on any issue; how you believed & acted before seeing it will remain unchanged. This is pure Hollywood shtick with shallow intrigue, manly fistfights, rocking car chases, well-marked villains, and well-aimed bullets. It was a gas.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print. Software.
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. Print, Web.
Combs, Mark DeWayne. End the Beginning. USA: Splinter in the Mind's Eye Pub., 2014. 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.
Stampp, Kenneth M., Professor of American History at the University
of California (Berkeley).
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the
Ante-Bellum South. Vintage Books, 1955. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org