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I don’t do movie reviews because I don’t watch very many movies. I have a handful of movies that I dust off for semi-annual viewings (The Man Who Would Be King, Zulu, The Wind and the Lion, Master and Commander, Patton, We Were Soldiers Once, and Black Hawk Down among them), but movie-going is just not my thing. It seems like that when I do go out; my wife has chosen a movie, like, for instance, Father Stu and The Passion of the Christ.
When we do find a non-woke and non-morally objectionable movie, we try to support the people who made it. So when we heard that the team of Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon, who had written/directed a couple of movies we liked, God’s Not Dead and Unplanned, were bringing out another film, we decided we had to go on opening night to do our bit.
The film is called Nefarious and stars Sean Patrick Flanery in the dual role of Edward and the demon Nefarious, Jordan Belfi as Dr. James Martin, and Tom Ohmer as Warden Moss. Here’s where I am supposed to let you know something about the actors, but I’d be lying to you. I’d never heard of any of the three before yesterday.
We thought the trailer looked intriguing.
What was really intriguing was the interview Konzelman and Solomon gave the John-Henry Westen show, which has since been banned from YouTube for saying bad things about abortion and transgenderism. You can read and listen to it on LifeSiteNews. The interview starts at 7:29.
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In this interview, the writers talk about the strange events that happened while filming the movie. On the first day, 15 cast/crew members were out with COVID, and one of the writers was hospitalized. This added $600K in costs for leasing the main set. The union went out on strike on Day 4 over issues that were drummed up. The priest working on the project suffered a burst appendix. The most bizarre happening was that over Christmas, Solomon decorated one-half of his house with secular imagery and one-half with religious imagery to satisfy his young son. An animal came down the chimney and destroyed the religious decorations, leaving the secular decorations untouched. A record-high wind ripped the roof off a building where post-production work was taking place.
None of it was as spectacular as Jim Caviezel getting struck by lightning while filming The Passion of the Christ, but it was close.
The plot is fairly straightforward. Edward is on death row in Oklahoma. On his execution day, questions about his mental competency arise, and the state has Dr. James Martin, a heavily credentialed psychiatrist, interview him. Martin has just a few hours to make his determination, and his findings will decide whether Edward lives or dies. To make things interesting, Martin is an atheist of a very modernist bent.
As he interviews Edward, he encounters the demon, a fallen angel, Nefarious. A duel proceeds in which Martin attempts to outwit a supernatural being (that never works out well), while Nefarious temps Martin with fame and fortune, but he needs Martin’s acquiescence to close the deal.
Here are my bullet points.
- Flanery is just unbelievable as Edward/Nefarious. He effortlessly segues between a broken, possibly mentally ill Edward and a, well, diabolical Nefarious.
- The writing is sophisticated. At one point, some part of the dialog is a paraphrase of the colloquy between Pilate and Jesus from John 18. Edward promising Martin that before the day is over, he will have killed three times has echoes of Christ’s challenge to Peter.
- The Blaze’s Steve Deace is one of the Executive Producers. At one point, Glenn Beck makes an appearance. I don’t have anything against Glenn Beck, and I understand he donated his time gratis, but I think his scene is superfluous and weakens the movie.
- The theology, from a Catholic standpoint which is what the writers are, is absolutely perfect. It places the supernatural Satan and his gofers into the proper context and links their actions to what is happening today.
The larger theme of the movie is that evil is real, it is active in the world, and that unbridled freedom is necessary for it to happen. It reminds us that Satan needs our cooperation to function. It is going to hit Libertarians and some Democrats hard right where they live.
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