A brilliant treatment of the hypocrisy of religion and establishment.

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2001)

Contact is avowed atheist Carl Sagan's glorious swan song, a brilliant treatment of the hypocrisy of religion and establishment. Jodie Foster is characteristically excellent as Dr. Ellie Arroway, the gifted astronomer whose discovery of an alien beacon sets off a frenzy for control of how the discovery should be handled.
Dr. Arroway is slapped down at every turn by those who do not appreciate her independent thinking. Her dilemma reflects the logical fallacy at the heart of all religion. When she will not accept on faith the "truths" imposed on her by religious zealots, she is denied the chance to be a part of a mission based on her research. Later, she is ridiculed for asking others to accept what she has seen with her own eyes.
Purists among us will quibble over some of the film's science, particularly in an early scene where Dr. Arroway, a brilliant mathemetician, miscalculates the odds of finding advanced civilizations in the universe by orders of magnitude. But the film has many worthy diversions. Matthew McConaughey, as Palmer Joss, is supposedly the good guy among the religious right. He is cunning and calculating, and like most religious fanatics, he is willing to do anything to get his way, especially if it includes a chance to punish nonbelievers. But Rob Lowe is priceless as Richard Rank, a thinly veiled version of Ralph Reed, a bigoted, hateful power monger who wields his flock as a sword to further his political interests.
Tom Skerritt's Dr. Drumlin lacks dimension, but is right on as the Machievellian politician exploiting Arroway's discovery. The supporting cast is sterling, including Angela Bassett, Jake Busey and David Morse, as Dr. Arroway's father. But the gem of the supporting cast is John Hurt. He is utterly magnificent as the ominous S. R. Hadden, the Howard Hughes-like scientist who lives on an airplane and funds the research that leads to the discovery of the alien signal.
Trivia note: one of Dr. Arroway's colleagues is Dr. Kent Clark, and I can't help but wonder what Sagan implies by that, aside from the obvious.
Far better than the typical Sci-Fi fare, Contact is a thoughtful and challenging look into the relationship between science and religion. It isn't hard, from watching the movie, to determine which side of the conflict Sagan came down on.