Not altogether cohesive or satisfying

Rating: 7/10 (13 June 2003)

Roland Joffe's "The Mission" can, with hindsight, be seen as the first directoral misstep by a filmmaker who has subsequently been slumming it ("The Scarlet Letter", anyone?). This film has all the individual ingredients of a rousing, heartfelt masterpiece: Ennio Morricone's eponymous, redolent score, Chris Menges' strikingly mounted, symbolically saturated cinematography, Robert Bolt's erudite, literate and high-minded screenplay (apparently penned years earlier as a David Lean project) and a director just off from a round of plaudits for the excellent "The Killing Fields". Although the film has a number of isolated merits, the end product is a resolute dissapointment.
The opening sequence, a missionary attached to a cross making his way towards oblivion by way of a thunderous waterfall, masterfully segueing into Ennio Morricone's majestic theme; Jeremy Iron's Jesuit priest making his way up that same waterfall; the montage conveying the construction of the mission; the well placed use of Ray MacAnnalay's ambiguously doting, melancholy voice over, amongst others. The irony is that the film's major flaws result from these moments: the constant crescendo of emotional peaks, swelling violins, etc. combined with a narrative which contains such an obvious, inevitable conclusion, underscores most of the film's dramatic power.
The ending itself is a mess; it is badly choreographed (the soldier extra's don't seem to know in which direction to point their cannons and guns), with De Niro and Irons (as well as the Indian extra's) temporally confused as if their faculties have been clouded by langorous jungle narcotics. It seems rushed, probably due to its judiciously hurried inclusion in the 1987 Cannes Film Festival roster (it did win the 'Palme D'Or', granted).

Overall, a noble failure.