V For Vendetta

Alan Moore's cult graphic novel series began in the early '80s, but it couldn't be more timely. Originally influenced by Orwell's 1984, Moore's dark vision of a totalitarian Britain of the near future and a lone warrior who plots to liberate the people from bondage is sharply updated by the scriptwriting Wachowski brothers (The Matrix) and director James McTeigue into an excoriating parable of Bush-era America. After an enemy virus has decimated the population, Britons surrender their freedom for the security of a police-state government that preaches "Strength Through Unity Through Faith." The news is controlled by the fear-mongering Chancellor (John Hurt), "random audio sweeps" listen in on private conversations, anyone with the "wrong" religion or political or sexual inclination is eliminated, and anyone who lacks faith in the government is branded a terrorist. Like most of the populace, TV station drone Evey (Natalie Portman) accepts the lie that the government acts "for your own protection"—until she meets V (Hugo Weaving), a caped crusader in an eerie grinning Guy Fawkes mask. A one-man resistance army on a mission of personal vengeance and social justice, V plans to revive the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605, when the notorious Fawkes almost blew up Parliament. V gives the nation plenty of warning so no one will be inside, hoping his example of resistance will stir the uneasy, yet compliant masses to oust their oppressors. Courtly and articulate in his Phantom-like underground lair (stuffed with art and artifacts purloined from the Ministry Of Objectionable Materials), inspired by the movie The Count Of Monte Cristo, V's intentions are honorable. (Once a victim of horrfying government experiments, his political assassinations are so justifiable one of his own victims whispers "Thank God," when he appears.) Still, V is a tough sell as a hero. His method of indoctrinating allies does indeed smack of terrorist fanaticism, except the result is entirely different; that Moore forces us to consider that difference adds a layer of thorny complexity. Stephen Rea provides rumpled dignity as a police inspector uncovering nasty government secrets; Stephen Fry charms as a chat show host who dares subvert the system with laughter. Too much gurgling gore mars the last battle. But the finale in which a tide of people reclaim their power is exhilarating, and the film delivers some of the gutsiest, grittiest, most heartbreaking sequences on the wages of fear and compliance you'll see all year.

(***) (R) 130 minutes.
Review published in Good Times, March 23, 2006