ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Thailand

Most Wanted – The Cost of Ambition

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What happens when a big, police inspired drug sting goes bad? Most Wanted, from writer/director Daniel Roby, is inspired by a true story of a Canadian man who was used by the police and left hanging in the wind when things turned bad.

Daniel Léger (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) is a recovering heroin addict, who finds himself connected to Glen Picker (Jim Gaffigan), a small-time dealer and informant to the Federal police. He convinces Federal agent Frank Cooper (Stephen McHattie) that Léger can make a big drug deal in Thailand. Cooper, who has been passed over for a promotion, wants to make a name for himself and sets up an extensive and expensive operation in conjunction with the Thai police. It turns out Léger is not the person they all think, and really isn’t up to this task. When things fall apart and a Canadian agent dies in the process, Léger ends up serving a 100 year sentence in a rugged Thai prison.

He would have languished there if not for Victor Malarek (Josh Harnett) an investigative reporter for the Globe and Mail. Mararek is on the outs with the newspaper’s management. He is brash, confident and way too full of himself. But when he goes to Thailand to get an interview with this Canadian citizen that seems to have been abandoned by the Canadian government, he learns that Léger was a patsy who was used by police who want to make this all disappear.

A familiar three-act format might have been a bit more appropriate for the storytelling. Instead we get the story in two parallel timelines, one focusing on Léger and the police operation, the other on Malarek’s investigation. Knowing this going in may make the first quarter of the movie a bit more understandable as it alternates between timelines.

The story is one of ambitions. Léger is an innocent person caught up in a battle of people looking to advance themselves. Picker is in this for the money he’s promised when the operation is completed. Cooper wants to prove that he should have a better position in the RCMP. Malarek enters this fray looking for a big story, but discovers that the person who this story revolves around is more important than the story he wants. Malarek becomes the agent of justice in the story.

It also speaks to the way a person can be seen as expendable to someone’s ambitions. Léger’s life was considered by the police involved to be so unimportant that it didn’t matter that he would spend his life in jail for what they orchestrated. And to protect the institutional integrity of the police, the government was willing to let this one, unimportant, former drug addict suffer what was not really his doing.

The film is set during the time of the US War on Drugs, and Canada’s own version of that. One of the keys that makes that “war” so ineffective was the idea that those involved with drugs were in some way unworthy of the protection of the law or of basic human consideration. It resulted in long, unjust prison sentences with no real consideration of the harm done to people in need. Daniel Léger is only one example.

Most Wanted is available through Virtual Cinema at local art houses and on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Saban Films.

Being Chosen: The Story of God With Morgan Freeman S2E1

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(Photo Credit: National Geographic/David Kraemer)

The success or failure of a television or cable program can be largely attributed to many different factors.  Having a good story is important, as is good videography and relatable characters. A topic that’s intriguing also helps considerably.  But in the end, it all comes down to the number of eyeballs looking at the show each week. In the case of National Geographic Channel’s The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, there were a lot of eyeballs looking at Freeman’s foray into faith-based questions we’ve probably asked at one time or another.  In fact, the show was National Geographic’s most watched of all time. Thankfully, a second season of episodes are one the way—the first airing this evening (9 PM/8 CT).  In it, Freeman (and a few new characters) take a look at the concept of the Chosen One and what that means across faiths.

If you’re not familiar with the show, Freeman takes a topic relating to faith and looks for commonalities within various religions around the world. Christianity is given significant attention, but so are Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu perspectives. It can be quite fascinating, and the first episode of the second season is no exception.

What does it mean to be chosen? Is it exclusive to a specific faith?  Freeman takes a look at a number of different variants of this concept, beginning with a nine year-old named Jalue Dorjee.  He plays soccer like many kids his age, but at age two, his parents were given a paper from the Dalai Lama signifying he’s a reincarnation of an individual who has inhabited folks for five centuries.  In another instance, Freeman travels to London to celebrate the martyrdom of a grandson of the prophet Muhammad. Native Americans are also represented in the form of Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the chosen one of the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota tribes (see top picture).

(Photo Credit: National Geographic/Seth Nejame)

Even though chosen ones “help the faithful get back on track,” they’re not always living.  In the case of the Sikh culture, their chosen one is a book (see photo above). Some show their devotion in Thailand by piercing themselves with various objects such as metal spears (!) to gain superhuman powers. And sometimes the chosen are more along the lines of missionaries, such as Christian Kenneth Bae, who endured two years of hard labor in North Korea for simply organizing prayer groups.  His journey has brought him to the realization that “Jesus is [his] hope—[he] wants to be a blessing.”

There are a few changes to the program this season.  Gone is the blast of the shofar to start the program; instead, a graphic montage replaces it.  I thought the horn was a great part of the first season and am sad to see it go.  In addition, Freeman is not in every section of the show—at least in the first episode.  Two people—a man and a woman—take his role as they explore aspects of the episode’s theme (I think they’re one-time examples, however).  It adds a different perspective, but I think the focus of the show has been Freeman’s personality shining through the exploration of certain faiths and customs.  In the two sections of note, that seems to have been somewhat lost, although the two individuals do a good job with their questioning.

For me, the biggest takeaway from the episode was along the lines of what it means to be chosen.  In essence, it’s another way to say an individual is called out by God for some special purpose.  Sometimes it happens in a dramatic way, such as Paul’s encounter with God on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9:1-18) or Moses finding a burning bush (see Exodus 3:1-10).  But for many people, it’s not that way.  There’s an inward nudging that God has plans beyond anything a person could ask or even imagine.  To respond in any way other than acceptance is to be in a state of rebellion akin to Jonah (with or without the whale).  From there, it’s a process to become so in tune with God’s plans that one’s plans simply become his. In fact, Jesus made it clear that all that follow after him are to be his ambassadors to the world in their words, thoughts, and actions, seeking to make disciples of all nations (see Matthew 28:18-20).  It’s not easy, but being chosen is a responsibility that must be taken seriously.  The end results can be incredible—if we’re just willing to listen and respond in faith.

Anonymous – Hacking Goes Bad

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The advent of information technology has made a great many things possible—including crime. In Anonymous¸ Alex (Callen McAuliffe), a young man who is upset with the bank that fired his mother, sets off to disrupt the system through hacking. He learns of DarkWeb, a group that shares that goal and he seeks a way to get in. At first,  he is given some stuff to sell, then he is given credit card numbers. He has entered the world of cyber-crime: credit card fraud and identity theft. He connects with the streetwise Sye (Daniel Eric Gold) and Kira (Lorraine Nicholson) and together they expand their criminal enterprise trying to find their way to Z, the mastermind behind DarkWeb. However, it may well be that they are all just pawns in a game that could become very dangerous.

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It’s hard to feel much sympathy for Alex. We understand his anger, but it is clear that he has chosen to set aside morality for what he sees as a just cause. But even after it becomes obvious to him that in reality they are making money, but not “messing with the system” he makes no effort to change. There is no sense of remorse for the victims of the crimes he is committing. And, no, the crimes are not against the financial system he wants to be targeting.

Actually, the cyber aspect of the crimes is really just a detail. The crimes themselves are just everyday larceny. As to the motivation for the crimes, what may seem noble to Alex in his anger really is tied to his hubris and other people’s greed. There is very little here that is not an age-old tale of losing oneself in a string of bad decisions. Unfortunately, it is told without a great deal of redeeming insight that Alex will come out better in the end, so we come away from the film without a sense that the character has grown.

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Photos courtesy of Hacker Productions