A Good Way Of Questioning Our Own Freedom

Rating: 9/10 (27 May 2013)

V For Vendetta" is a rare delight for various reasons. It has artistic qualities that succeed in being commercial worthy and is not ashamed about being manipulative. It scores high merits in terms of style and requires attention from the very opening scenes and never goes back on its intentions until the final closing credits. It never falls victim to be morally drawn in its message and for a better understanding, this a thinking person's type of movie. It never has to resort to the tiresome clichés or cheap ways to escape from a scene in a rushed kind of manner. The characters portrayed in the movie are very well-drawn and are never caricatured and never once do they preach about moral values that they are trying to bring across to it audience and in the end it works out quite effectively.
The plot is very complicated (but it still very fun to watch nevertheless). The story is set in the year 2020 in England. In that time period England has been overruled by a regime that is fascist which had materialized by the paranoia caused by an influx of terrorist attacks. Freedom of expression and liberal ideologies are know obsolete and all information is in the hands of the government and if anyone has a problem with that will likely be gone and if you're a Muslim, well you can forget it. What stands out from all these other dystopia regimes is the stunning atmosphere. The England depicted here is like a hellish nightmare where it's hostility and fear is backed by fear and paranoia and the tension is quite isolating. The setting for this movie is filled with an engaging atmosphere, that's also quite exotic and even quite power-charged. The setting of this dystopia England has a unique ensemble of well-developed protagonists and antagonists, like the powerful, but ruthless High Chancelloe Adam Sutler (John Hurt) and the more if strangely sympathetic Chief Inspector Eric Finch (Stephen Rea) all the way to the film's leading heroes V (a brilliant Hugo Weaving) and Evey (Natalie Portman). All the characters were wonderfully drawn and the characterizations are the best that I have ever seen since "Pulp Fiction". And I'm glad they avoided any kind of character that would ruin the movie (right Jar-Jar Binks?)
The story itself centers around V's mission to go up against the tyranny that has been bestowed upon his country and we just want to root for him all the way. V is a very cool and endearing character. We may not always like the things he does to stand up against the empowered government. Sure his tactics are violent and not for the weak of heart, but we got to give the man credit; he has a lot of guts. As I mentioned before, this is a thinking person's movie. It gives us a thing to contemplate on, the way our government runs and to question ourselves and ask ourselves are we as free as we are lead to believe? Okay so I don't agree that killing another person is not the right way to go about fighting for freedom, but we as a society should ask how limited is our freedom? And as our society caves in will our freedom be more limited as the years roll on?
But make no bones about it "V For Vendetta" is high in terms of entertainment too. The plot is exhilarating that is high on thrills, unpredictability and filled with some subliminal revelations. The executions in the action scenes were quite thrilling and the dialogue is clever, witty and at times humorous in a philosophical point of view. On a technical sense the visuals are purely magical. In a nutshell, this movie is a cult classic.