Roland Joff (The Killing Fields) directs this fuzzy effort at a David Lean-like epic without David Lean's sense of emotional proportion. Lean's most important screenwriting collaborator, Robert Bolt, in fact wrote The Mission, which concerns a Jesuit missionary (Jeremy Irons) who establishes a church in the hostile jungles of Brazil and then finds his work threatened by greed and political forces among his superiors. Robert De Niro is briefly effective as a callous soldier who kills his own brother and then turns to Irons's character to oversee his penance and conversion to the clergy. The narrative and dramatic forces at work in this movie should be more stirring and powerful than they are--the problem being that Joff is too removed from them to allow us in. --Tom Keogh
Rodrigo Mendoza (ROBERT DE NIRO) was a violent soldier-for-hire in 1750s South America. Now he is a man of peace serving the Rain Forest Indians he once enslaved. But armies of Spain and Portugal threaten the lifestyle and safety of the native peoples. Now Rodrigo may have to pick up his sword and musket once again. From the producer of Chariots of Fire and the director of The Killing Fields comes a powerful epic co-starring JEREMY IRONS and graced with dazzling Academy Award-winning cinematography, set to a memorable music score and scripted by the Oscar-winning screenwriter of A Man for All Seasons and Doctor Zhivago.
A terrific help and willing to work with me to get the product even when problems kept popping up. Thank you, thank you!
"Favorite Movie"
Written By: Kari
This has always been my favorite movie, especially the music score. I also found the documentary about the village which provided the indian actors, very interesting. The movie is based on a true story which full of hope, forgiveness and rebirth will, in the end, bring the viewer back to the harsh political and economic realities of the European/Western world which has come to dominate our lives and values.
"One of the most potent and powerful films then - and still"
Written By: G P Padillo
I just finished watching a movie that, when I first saw it in 1986, made such an impression on me that I could think of nothing else for days. It came at a fragile and life changing moment in my life and for some seven nights I walked several miles back and forth in a bitter winter to see it at the once splendid Ontario Theatre in Washington, DC. The film was Roland Joff's epic "The Mission" with the unlikely cast of Jeremy Irons, Robert DeNiro, Liam Neeson and Ray McNally. When I first saw it I thought it to be amongst the most beautiful films I'd ever seen, and nearly 25 years later, think so still. While nominated and winning many international awards, The Mission was mostly ignored by Hollywood, receiving only one Oscar (cinematography).
The complexities of the story telling in "The Mission" are almost too much to take in in a single film lasting a bit more than two hours, but Jaffe has woven them together with a touch that is both delicate and profound, creating a tapestry as impressive and intricate as any medieval Flemish tapastry, its story held together flawlessly.
While supposedly created for our own preservation and edification, politics and religion have done as much or more unspeakable horrors in the names of God and Man as they have good and in "The Mission" we see the bloody result, despite the effort of a few rebel priests who believe in the power of love and the natives with whom they try to share their world. The villains are plentiful in this "true tale" and Joffe never disguises them, allowing the deceptive simplicities of "good versus evil" run its predictable course, as they twist and turn everything they touch into the inevitable choked and knotted apocalypse of sorrow that is always the end result of greed.
Despite its bleak, often hopeless nature, Joffe nonetheless gives us a miracle: a film of such ineffable beauty that stirs both heart and mind through the combination of remarkable acting, a wilderness captured in breathtaking cinematography, battles both physical and spiritual, and wed it all to one of the most remarkable musical scores of the late 20th century.
"Mission accomplished"
Written By: Marilyn S. Larson
Order received as promised. However, there was some conflicting information as to delivery date ( 7 days; 14 days).
"BLUE RAY PLEASE!!!!!!!!!"
Written By: etp
This epic film would be great on Blue Ray! With all the trash and garbage on BR how about one of the best films ever made?
"great service"
