Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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136 of 143 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Effective., March 21, 2006
Hollywood makes movies all the time that involve the murdering of innocents. However, these movies rarely illustrate any positive consequences that result after the murders, let alone any spiritual sentiments or moral understanding that occur within the murders themselves. END OF THE SPEAR is a film that not only does both these things, but also tells how the deaths of those killed helped bring about the salvation of an entire race of people from the verge of a self-inflected extinction.
END OF THE SPEAR is largely a movie about the Waodani people. The Waodani are a people that live in the jungles of Ecuador. Despite the pressures of the outside world that continued to squeeze the environment and resources of the Waodani, they continued to live a self-sufficient and self-contained life in the jungle. That is, except for one crucial element: the Waodani were killing themselves to death. For whatever reasons, the Waodani had split into different tribes. The lack of resources and women caused the tribes to perform raids upon each other. If a child lived after one of these raids, he would grow up to seek revenge upon those who had killed his family. Thus, back and forth the violence continued for several generations until only a handful of Waodani were left and they were on the verge of a self-inflicted genocide.
They were saved by a group of missionaries. Five young men slowly made contact with the tribe. Eventually, they attempted to have a face-to-face interaction with members from the tribe. The attempt ended in the murder of the five men (Jim Elliot and Nate Saint included). Undeterred the wives and families of the murdered men contacted the tribe and came to live with them. This act of compassion, grace, and mercy proved to save the Waodani from both disease and themselves.
In Christian circles, the lives of Nate Saint and Jim Elliot have taken on almost mythic proportions. Inspiring as their lives were, the movie END OF THE SPEAR helps to ground the story in truth and reality by telling the story from the perspective of Mincayani, a Waodani leader and the man who killed Nathan Saint.
END OF THE SPEAR was made on a shoestring budget with limited promotion. Yet, except for the sometimes cheesy voice-overs, the picture appears to have the budget of a normal motion picture. The cinematography is vivid, the acting is good, and the editing concise. There is a spiritual slant to the movie, but unlike many Christian films the Gospel message and story of conversion isn't contrived. Instead, it occurs naturally and fits with the pace and story of the rest of the film.
Granted, END OF THE SPEAR isn't for everyone. It begins rather slowly and there are a few awkward moments. Nevertheless, the filmmaking in END OF THE SPEAR is on par with the average Hollywood flick and its storytelling is on a level above much of the garbage that Tinsletown vomits out every year. The movie is not only based upon a true story, but stays true that story and has a great message about compassion, grace, and reconciliation. Hollywood could learn a thing or two from a film like this.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bigger Reality than Hollywood Can Create, May 3, 2006
Some of the magic of Hollywood is its ability to take a story and make it "bigger than life". Visually, graphically, technologically Hollywood is able to do amazing larger than life productions. What struck me about this movie is that instead of this movie being larger than life, the actual lives lived by the men and women portrayed in the film were so much larger than the movie. That is not a criticism of the movie, instead it is a wonderful window into the weighty real lives that they lived. Often we watch movies in order to escape reality and enter into another world. This movie inspires us to enter into not an imagined world but into reality - the kind of reality that we all long for - a life that is weighty, sincere, meaningful - a life worth living.
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67 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I Was Presently Surprised, March 15, 2006
Growing up a Protestant kid in the 80's I tripped over the story of Nate Saint, Jim Elliot and the three other missionaries who were brutally murdered by the Waorani people in 1956. It is the tragic story that caused a sensation in the United States. Not because the men died in vain, but because the wives of these men reached out to these violent people and changed their lives forever. It's a story that captivated me. In fact when I was eleven I told many people that I one day wanted to make a movie about these very people. To my surprise THE END OF THE SPEAR came along and does just that.
SPEAR tells the tale from the vantage point of young Steve Saint (Chase Ellison), Nate Saints (Chad Allen) pre-teen son, and Mincayani (Louie Leonardo) the Waorani leader whom killed Nate Saint with his own spear. It begins as the Waorani people are on the verge of the extinction. Their violent society has the Ecuadoran government ready to go in and kill them all, and their warlike ways have made them unable to survive very long anyway. It's only when Saint's wife (Cara Stoner) and sister Rachel (Sara Kathryn Bakker) move into the tribe and attempt to reach out to the Waorani women that redemption begin to take hold.
I walked into SPEAR with very little expectation. You have to understand I have seen hundreds of horrible "Christian" films. Most are not worth the film they are printed on. But SPEAR works. Yes it's got some very clunky scenes, the dialogue is a tad bit simplistic, but it has a dramatic tension I wasn't quite expecting. I was actually moved by scenes. I rooted for characters and did not feel talked down to. SPEAR is not a movie about saving souls, it's a movie about characters. It is the kind of movie that if given a chance will spark debate and inspiration. It's motive seems innocent and not heavy handed.
The cinematography while simple by Hollywood's standard is effective. The score doesn't get in the way, and Director Jim Hannon fills his story with just enough detail that it's believable. He gets performances out of his actors that are simple and understated. It's not Oscar caliber, but that's not to be expected. The dialogue works, even if the Subtitles seem to rob the Waorani language of any real nuance, it's simple and get us from point A to point B as well as it can. There were moments I wanted to movie to explain the motives of it characters a little better. But for what it's worth SPEAR is still effective.
My qualms with the casting of Chase Ellison as Young Steve should also be noted. Some heavy scenes fall on this young boy and unfortunately he doesn't have the chops to hold it on his shoulders. A better child actor should have been sought. Casting children can be very hard. But the only scenes I didn't buy fell on this poor kid to vocalize and the poor material stuck out like a sore thumb.
I also hated the ending. It hurt the picture. There must have been a more powerful way of ending it. But unfortunately it pushed the story into the melodramatic range. It also introduced a supernatural twist that needed an explanation. We saw the scene earlier and these events didn't occur, why now? Hopefully this sour ending will not hurt the rest of the picture for most audiences. I for one was a little disappointed.
But all in all END OF THE SPEAR is not a bad film. It has its flaws. But at its heart it's the kind of movie that will inspire those whom let it. It will move those whom allow it to move and hopefully it will open a dialogue about International Missions. A job that has gotten a bad rap by people whom don't understand its importance in shaping the modern world. I'm glad that this story was told and that I had an opportunity to see it.
***1/2 (out of 5)
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