One Paragraph Movie Review: Of Gods and Men

One hundred and first film: Of Gods and Men, or more alphabetically: Des Hommes et Des Dieux. Thanks to this movie, I’ve finally cracked the formula for effective emotional movie making: in order to make your audience deeply appreciate an important, poignant scene, you must first bore them for a minimum of one and a half hours. Based on a true story about French Catholic monks facing Islamic terrorism in Algeria, this movie has about eight different very good premises and plot hinges, but kind of just plods through them with a sombre French nod. The only time I cried (shut up) was in a scene where the monks appreciate the beauty of wine and Tchaikovsky. It took my housemate and me playing a game where we drank every time we saw a donkey, and a very under-appreciated joke by me about how the monks selling honey at the market was “monky business” just to get us through the long dry bits. Nah. Two and a half relentless bouts of chanting out of five.