A New Spirit

This is an "I once was lost, but now I'm found" based-on-fact story about a Jewish problem child in Israel who grows up to be a preacher for Jesus. The Israeli filmmakers seem to give it their all on a restrictively modest budget. (The movie's "making of" shows the filming of a couple of fire scenes that-- I can only guess-- had to be abbreviated a bit in the release because they didn't produce enough good-quality footage.) The acting is fine, although a kindly New Yorker from a Catholic family has a suspiciously sun-lined face and odd accent; it's no surprise that the actor is actually Israeli. The script unsurprisingly presents the proposition that Christianity is not a violation of true Judaism but a fulfillment of true Judaism. What did surprise me is that rather than concentrating entirely on the positive message, the script also takes a smack or two at contemporary Orthodox Judaism, specifically the bidding of money for synagogue honors and the rigorous prescriptions for mourners' prayers. I guess it's not afraid of alienating the more committed members of the Jewish public. In contrast, although the protagonist is believably flawed, the film's Christian characters are utterly saintly, with nothing to distinguish among them, making the film look more like a propaganda fest than it had to look (even if it is). Other glitches in the script are occasional melodramatic timing of events and an unexplained major jump of location within Israel (Kiryat Shmona to Jaffa - non-Israelis may not notice). Biographically true, but a line or two of dialogue could have covered it helpfully. The film was quite well advertised, but when I attended a weekday matinee during the first week of release, the only people in the audience were my wife and I and two elderly women who had wandered into the wrong movie.