Risen – a Review

              Ever since Saving Private Ryan, it seems that movies which want to say much (whether it’s about bonds of brotherhood in war time or seeking revenge, as with The Revenant) are designed to catch your attention right away with a splashy, gritty battle scene. Risen follows the same formula, opening with a well-researched battle sequence pitting a small Roman detachment against under-armed, zealous Jewish freedom-fighters. It’s ferocious and predictable, and it makes first-century Judea look like a bloody, chaotic environment filled with unrest and violence. That impression is completely correct.

              In fact, the overbearing Roman presence within Risen is one of its strengths. Not many Christians today realize just how many Roman crosses were erected around Jesus’ time in his country; thousands – possibly tens of thousands – of Jews were put to death upon Rome’s ultimate symbol of victory.

              So when the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth imposes itself on the attention of the main character (Clavius, a tough and intelligent Roman commander played reliably by Joseph Fiennes) it seems at first like just another quick mopping-up operation, one execution out of many, another body to add to the ever-growing heap of bodies just outside the city gates.

              Clavius finds army life unfulfilling, but sees it as a necessary stepping stone to a peaceful retirement. Naturally then he feels both duty-bound and put out when he not only needs to oversee what essentially amounts to body disposal duties at the tail-end of a crucifixion, but also actual guard duty over a man who obviously, absurdly is not in any kind of shape to get up and make a break for it.

              So once the guards at the tomb turn up missing, along with the body of Jesus, Clavius is ordered to go out and locate the body. Much of the first half of the movie is taken up with the increasingly gruesome search for Jesus among freshly dead corpses. Jesus’ followers are hunted down and dragged in for interrogation. Crisp, militant discussions ensue between Pilate, Clavius and his assistant. It all has the feeling of a Law & Order period piece (which is one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much).

              Then (SPOILER ALERT) about half-way through, I got hit with a twist that was almost as surprising for me as it seems to have been for Clavius. Following up on a lead, he arrives at a non-descript house, inches the door open with his sword and comes face to face with Jesus, now clearly alive and flaunting the scars from his ordeal but none the worse for having been crucified not long before.

              What follows from that point is essentially a completely different movie. Instead of seeing what Jesus’ resurrection might have looked like to an outsider, we get to see some of Jesus’ disciples up close and personal, going through the most tender and intimate moments they experienced with Christ before his ascension. Christ’s invitation to Thomas; Peter splashing up the shore to meet his Savior; Mary Magdalene’s vindication as a witness. And in the middle of it all, Clavius the Roman commander, guest-disciple, whose presence surely would have been mentioned if he’d really been there.

              Ironically, for me the real force of the story actually diminished the moment Jesus turned up on screen. See, I had been under the impression that it was going to be a story about a true outsider confronting the evidence, processing it with all the intellectual tools of a rigorous thinker, and eventually reaching a moment of decision where he realizes that belief had somehow come to life within his own soul through an organic, spiritual process we call faith. Instead I got Saul of Tarsus, redux.

              What convinced Clavius? It wasn’t the disciples’ testimonies, or their willingness to stick to their story in spite of threats and torture. It wasn’t the persistent, inexplicable absence of a body. It wasn’t the magnitude of the first-hand accounts or even the gibbering, incoherent memories of the guards at the tomb. It was direct eyewitness evidence. In short, I expected to see Clavius in the part of a juror, weighing the evidence and slowly becoming convinced. Instead I got to see what the star witness was seeing as he saw it. No wonder he believed.

              You might ask why that makes it less powerful. Surely seeing Jesus with your own eyes is the most powerful proof of all? It would be, I suppose. But my answer is that I didn’t want Clavius to go through the same experience as Thomas or Peter, or even the apostle Paul. I wanted him to go through my experience. I wanted him to have to believe the impossible without having seen it for himself. I wanted him to fulfill the soft rebuke Jesus offered to Thomas at that moment; “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”

              In one sense, anybody could believe something they’ve seen with their own eyes. Adding one more fictional eyewitness to an already long list of real eyewitnesses does nothing to strengthen Jesus’ case. Giving people who already believe in Jesus another pleasant cinematic voyage through part of his life is a harmless diversion, and for some people it may even be a moving experience. But I can’t imagine that it will have any effect whatsoever on someone who starts out as a sceptic. It’s a two-hour action-adventure-detective story for Christians. True, that’s not a bad way to spend an afternoon, but in the grand scheme it's unlikely to make a dent.