Ahead of its time, but set in the wrong country IMHO

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2013)

The idea of a terrorist as a popular hero, the irony of John Hurt who played Winston in "1984" playing the dictator, and the further irony of Stephen Rea who played a terrorist in "The Crying Game" playing the relentless cop who is now hunting a terrorist for the totalitarian regime were all braver ideas than I am accustomed to seeing coming out of Hollywood in the 21st century.
The acting is commendable. It is good to see Natalie Portman given the chance to take on a more challenging role than she was given in her part in the Star Wars prequels where, along with the rest of the cast, she saw lots of action but had little opportunity to act. Plus, Hugo Weaving had a real challenge to project a personality behind the Halloween mask he wore throughout the film with mere body language and the inflection of his voice. I think it was a challenge that he met admirably.
I guess the one thing that really bothered me was the basic premise of the film. Having just read "While Europe Slept" I find it difficult to believe that the United States would end up self destructing by ever managing to be more politically correct than any country in Europe, including Great Britain. I also find it hard to believe that religious fundamentalism would ever take root in England, since its language and ways would seem foreign to almost the entire citizenry. After all, the entire continent of Europe has been in a post-Christian era for about the last one hundred years. Nobody in Europe would even understand what the dictator was talking about when he delivered one of his religious rants - he might as well be reciting Shakespeare backwards.
Instead, this film looks more and more like a futuristic vision of the U.S., and not even that futuristic. I can easily see a theocratic fascist regime set up in the United States, citizens hassled endlessly by security forces over minor infractions of countless rules, and Americans just sitting back and taking it. Europeans would be more likely to protest under these circumstances than Americans, in particular if you could convince large numbers of them that it was "God's will" or it was for the sake of "national security". Mix Calvinism with an extreme form of nationalism and you've got a recipe for exactly what happens in this film. In the U.S. we have plenty of both.