Heart of the Beholder

The Heart of the Beholder is the story of a dreamer who finally achieved one of his dreams: his own business, a chain of video stores in St. Louis, Mo, only to be driven out of business by a group of fanatics who are outraged when he won't remove The Last Temptation of Christ from the shelves of his stores. It is, as they say, based on real events. In fact, the movie was written and directed by the man himself on the advice, he says, of Robert Wise. Undertaking the project helped in his recovery process. At the time I write this, he is having trouble getting distribution for the movie.

This is a story that needed to be told. The trouble is that the movie isn't very good, more like a worse than average TV movie. The actors in the main roles don't quite pull it off. Michael Dorn in wasted in a small role. Greg Germann's performance is the best in the movie.

This is definitely a movie to see on DVD because all the background information is what makes it interesting. We learn that the most unlikely things depicted in the movie actually did happen. Freedom of speech is everywhere under threat so everybody should either see this movie or read about the story on-line.