A wonderful movie, but you have to think.

Rating: 9/10 (9 February 2008)

Watching V for Vendetta is like watching a horrifically frightening (potential) future of the United Kingdom. The Wachowski Brothers have written a screen play with countless allusions and nods to the happenings of the United States, the UK, and the world today. In the midst of pure tyranny, a man known only as V is hell bent on ending Britain's oppression. Wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and wearing holstered knives around his waist as if they were guns, V sets out to give birth to a revolution. Some might say there's no way America or the UK could ever get "like that." Keep in mind, Jews living in Germany in the 1930s had no intention of immigrating to Palestine because they thought there was no way Germany could ever get "that" bad.
Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) is somewhat unwillingly thrown into V's (Hugo Weaving) plot to change the country through revolution. We constantly move back and forth from V and Evey to the council of Ministers. Adam Sutler (played by John Hurt, and I'm sure it's more than coincidence that his name sounds like Adolf Hitler), Creedy (Tim Pigott-Smith), and a policeman, Inspector Finch (Stephen Rea) who is assigned the task of apprehending V. Finch pieces the puzzle together and finds out more about his country than he ever wanted to know. For Inspector Finch, the bell cannot be un-rung.
Some people didn't understand how all the politics of the movie work together and I don't want to get too deep into explaining how they do. This is one of those films that are better left to interpretation. One aspect that I think was very properly played up was the government's use of fear mongering. Make people scared and they're more than willing to give up civil liberties for a sense of security. What ends up happening is people become afraid to stand up and fight for their freedoms. In his time spent with Evey, V is able to thoroughly rid Evey of her fear. She would rather die than live in fear and that goes with the New Hampshire state motto; Live free or die.
There were a million and one references to politics, media manipulations, and media stereotypes. On the TV show Storm Saxon, the villain appears to be a black Arab Muslim. The very first scene makes a small reference to the war America started. There was a shot of a Nazi logo on the British flag, scenes of police hunting down Muslims and homosexuals; immigrants of any kind like during the Holocaust. One of the reoccurring themes in the film is the use of violence against innocent bystanders for the sake of the revolution; for the greater good. It's never made clear of V is a terrorist or a freedom fighter. He does kill security guards that were merely doing their jobs, minding their business. Like I said, it's left to interpretation. Probably the most ambiguous message to Vs cause came in the form of Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot. Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament and V blows up the Old Bailey. Evey is confused as to what difference it makes to blow up a building. As V explains, "A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. A symbol, in and of itself is powerless, but with enough people behind it, blowing up a building can change the world." The thought made me scratch at first, but then I realized exactly what he was trying to say in all the wrong ways. Modern scholars on terrorism say terrorists don't always choose symbols; they just need something that provides them with an audience. With modern technology, they always have one. So in essence, the terrorists and freedom fighters utilize the same tools.
On a final note, something mentioned in the film is what people did versus what they had hoped to do. You may have the best of intentions, but shooting people and dropping bombs is unlikely to bring peace to a country.