You know here in the United
States not much is known about the history
of our neighbor to the south, Mexico.
For most the only parts we know are about the Alamo and
that we got California from them.
There is a lot of history down there and probably a lot of stories that can be
told and should be told. That is what the film For Greater Glory is attempting
to do here. For Greater Glory is a film starring a predominately Latin cast with
many well known stars such as Andy Garcia and Eva Longoria. Now all these things
sound great on paper but not so much on the screen.
For Greater Glory tells the story of the Cristero War in the mid to late 1920s in Mexico. The government put a ban on public religious practices and persecuted Roman Catholics throughout the country. Citizens who disagreed decided to rebel to oust the government in power and return the rights to practice religion back into the country. The film covers a lot of time of the conflict from the initial laws getting passed to the peaceful resistance to the escalation to an armed conflict.
See the sad thing about this movie is that whole story
description sounds so interesting and worthy of some serious epic film making.
Well that isn’t what we get. What we do get is something that is too long, at
times overly melodramatic, manipulative of its audience and seriously wasting
it’s acting talent on poor script. One thing that makes you think when watching
this is that the whole thing is in English, the only Spanish spoken is the
characters names. The movie also tries to follow way too many characters. Andy Garcia is promoted as its star but really his character isn’t really followed
any more than a few others. While onscreen Garcia is giving a great performance
even though what he’s working with could be so much better. He’s at least making
you want to watch the screen.
The direction by Dean Wright is just ok, nothing
too bad or great. Some of the action set pieces are nice and gives an old
school western vibe but feels like its shot on a sound stage somewhere instead
of outside. The score is one of the main culprits of its manipulative tendencies;
it has this need to play music that’s telling you to “be sad now” or “this is
the rousing moments of inspiration”! It gets a little tired after awhile then totally
expected.
One of the main problems with this movie is that the
government is shown as cartoonishly evil. They do everything bad and terrorize
everyone who dare question them. Like these guys are worst than the Empire inStar Wars. There is no thought are attempt to show that side of the conflict in
any type of light other than the MOST EVIL EVER! Basically this whole thing
felt like a compressed early 90s network TV Easter miniseries. Now if that is
you type of the thing then more power to you but really you should sit this one
out and enjoy the weather.
