Hot Movies Summer 2007

AMS Staff | 16 December 2007

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The Kite Runner
Paramount
Rated M
Guilt is one of the few things that truly unites us. The Kite Runner records how extinguishing it can lead humans down the darkest roads, while embracing it can point the path to freedom.
Based on the best selling novel by Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner charts the turbulent history of a pair of Afghani boys growing up in 1970s Kabul. Amir is the son of a wealthy, westernised businessman; Hassan, a member of a despised minority. Amir steadily becomes ashamed of his devoted friend because of the trouble his ethnicity brings, and even more so as he discovers his own cowardice.
Amir’s growing shame leads him to falsely implicate Hassan in a theft that sees his family removed from his home. The moral force of The Kite Runner hinges on Amir’s decades-long effort to confess his betrayal and find forgiveness. The villain, however, delivers the film’s fundamental truth. He informs Amir he is prepared to forgive him, but ‘forgiveness isn’t free’.
Mark Hadley

Charlie Wilson’s War
Universal
Rated TBA
Based on a 2003 book of the same title and featuring a stellar cast including Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the film is a comic take on arguably the largest and most successful covert operation in history.
Congressman Charlie Wilson conspires with rogue CIA operative Gust Avrakotos to launch an operation to help the Mujahideen during the Soviet’s Afghan invasion.
The efforts of Wilson contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, with consequences that reverberate throughout the world today.
However, far from being a clean-cut hero, Wilson was a bachelor with a habit for hot tubs, strippers and cocaine. Yet his ‘Good Time Charlie’ exterior masks a deep passion for the underdog, and in the early ‘80s the underdog was Afghanistan. That Afghanistan holds the position that it now does in international relations is an irony not lost on the viewer. The film is a reminder that heroes can come in the most unlikely of guises.
Joseph Smith

Bee Movie
Paramount
Rated G
The new animated comedy from Jerry Seinfeld sees him play Barry B Benson, a bee who has just graduated from college and is disillusioned at his lone career choice: making honey. On a special trip outside the hive, Barry’s life is saved by Vanessa, a florist in New York City and Barry the Bee soon develops a crush on the human Vanessa. However, when Barry discovers humans actually eat honey stolen from bees he decides to sue.
As a result of the lawsuit, the bees reclaim all of the honey that has been stolen from them. However, because of the surplus of honey, the bees no longer have to produce any more honey. As a result they stop pollinating plants which then wither and die. Barry and Vanessa’s mission is then clear…
Putting aside the bizarre romance between woman and insect, Bee Movie is a very funny fable about fulfilling one’s purpose. We are created to work and the world is most blessed when we use our God-given gifts. Lawsuits and laziness are never a substitute for faithful, hard work.
Joseph Smith

The Jane Austen Book Club
Sony
Rated M
When all Jane Austen’s books have been made into films, and a film has even been made about her life (Becoming Jane), what’s next? Why, a film based on a novel about six book club members who find that each of Austen’s novels parallels their individual experiences.
The intertextuality of the concept is actually quite clever and a strong ensemble cast including Emily Blunt, Kathy Baker and Amy Brenneman brings to the screen a romantic drama that is sure to please Austen fans and romance buffs alike.
However, it must be said that romantic films of this nature can be easily swallowed while containing worldviews on relationships quite contrary to a Christian perspective. For example, multiple-divorcee Bernadette is a strong-willed, older woman living life by her own rules and is shown to be the most content of all the characters. Such a portrayal serves to make her behaviour normative.
Likewise, Christians may find the frank portrayal of lesbianism in the film unhelpful.
Joseph Smith