Movie Reviews

From Ted Baehr's

Movieguide Copyright 13achr, I 9/19

Driving Miss Daisy. .: Quality: excellent Content: A very slight c;aution Rating: PO Running time: 99 minutes Starring: Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Aykroyd., Patti Lupone Director: Bruce Beresford Producer: Richard D. Zanuck & Lili Fini. Zanuck Writer: Alfred Uhry, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Alfr!:d Uruy Genre: Drama-Comedy Offensive content: Two excla.rrui.lory curses Intended Audience: Adults Reviewer: Ted Baehr

D RIVING MISS DAISY is a great character study which will not only fill you with joy and love, but also encourage you to follow Jesus Christ . more closely. In a subtle way, this film asks and answers some of the most im-portant questions of our age. Miss Daisy Werthan is a highly-independent South-em Jewish matron who has known pov~ erty and prejudice - facts which she is not going to let anyone forget; although now she's rich and her son is accepted by Atlanta society. The tough, yet loving old woman insists upon doing everything herself, until she backs her new car into a gully.

To protect her from future acCidents, her dedicated son, Boo lie, hires a chauf-feur against her will. Stalwart and very patient, Hoke Colburn is a strong, intelli gent,. black Christian who tunis the other cheek and refuses to compromise his values. For one week, Miss Dctisy is imprisoned in her house because she

Dan Aykroyd and Jessica Tandy are superb in Drivillg Miss Daisy, but the movie is really Morgan Freeman's (right). This is one of the great performances of all time. Director, Australian Bruce Beresford, deserves much acclaim as well. -DEG

refuses to allow Hoke to drive her to the Piggly-Wiggly market in her brand new 1948 Hudson. Finally, she tries walking to the store, and Hoke drives slowly beside her. Eventually, she climbs into the car, but doesn' t want anyone to see her and conclude that she's "putting on airs," as she says. Miss Daisy is pretty hard on Hoke, but he parries every blow with wisdom. Wben. she attends her daughter-in-law's Christmas party, she tells Hoke that he will be the only Christian there. Of course, he has to wait outside with the car.

When Miss Daisy goes to a benefitfor Martin Luther King, Jr., she disdains Hoke's company in spite of the sugges-tion by Boolie that she take Hoke to the dinner. With the air of a liberal support-

. ing a good cause, she tells her patient chauffeur that "times have changed," as he drops her off at the door. Hoke replies with grace, ''Times ain't changed all that much."

However, despite the wide gaps that

separate them, Daisy and Hoke ultimately become a beguiling "odd couple." Against her will, Miss Daisy warms to Hoke because Hoke lives the Christian virtues of justice, mercy and humility. "You are my best friend," she admits to Hoke at the end of the film, and their friendship ulti-mately transcends their differences and similarities. As in the Gospel story itself, love triumphs over alienation.

What a joy to see a film where the hero is a believing Christian, the heroine is a believing Jew, and the audience walks away smiling and greeting one another. This film will make you feel good. Scene after scene will find a place in the pages of your memory to comfort and encour-age as the years pass. DRIVING MISS DAISY will bring tears to your eyes as well as humor to your heart .

This film dares to tackle the difficult problem of racism with great wisdom and sensitivity and solves it the only way it can be solved through Christian love and reconciliation, instead of aggravating the

The Counsel of Chalcedon April, 1990 page 22

problem .through propangandistic calls for humanist rebellion and revenge. At a time when most Hollywood films have

. put forth Barabbas as the solution to the problem of prejudice, it is a joy to find a film which promotes the Way of forgive-ness and reconciliation.

A story of persistence against all odds, the picture is based on

a popular Pulitzer Prize-win-. ning play. It is marred by

only two curses, which were not in the play, but probably inserted to war-rant the PG rating. On the other hand, there is a pow-erfuhenditionofthehymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" at afuneral,andHoke'sprayers andfaithin Christ are treated with great respect. DRIVING MISS DAISY is finely crafted with an attention to details that convinc-ingly span twenty years. The perform-ances are superb, especially Morgan Freeman as Hoke, who deserves the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film is almost flawless and will become a classic in the tradition of CHARIOTS OF FIRE, THE TRlP TO BOUNTIFUL and TO }{ILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

ReCommended action: See DRIVING MISS DAISY! and please write a note of thanks to Mr. Robert A. Daly, Chairman of W amer Brothers, Inc. and Mr. Barry Reardon, President of Warner Brothers Distribution. Your note will encourage them to make more great movies with timeless biblical themes. Their address is: 4000 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91522. (818) 954-6290.

Born on the 4th of July

Quality: Excellent. Warning: Bad Rating: R Runnin& time: 143 minutes Starrin&: Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, Kyra Sedgwick, Raymond.J. Barry, Jerry Levine& FranJc Whaley Director: Oliver Stone Producer: A. Kitman Ho & Oliver Stone Writer: OliVer Stone & Ron Kovic Distributor: Universal Pictures Genre: War Drama Offensive content: Profanities, obscenities, crudities, graphic war and hospital scenes

(i.e., blood spurting from mouth), full frontal female nudity, sex with prostitutes, and ex-cessive use of alcohol Intended Audience: Adults Reviewer: Dirk Gastaldo

Inspired in part by his own autobiog-raphy, BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY spans two decades of Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic's life. Opening on July 4th, 1956, Ron is watching a patri-otic parade as he celebrates his tenth birthday in his hometown ofMassapequa, N.Y. Raised in a patriotic, Catholic fam-ily, young Ron sees the military as the road to glory.

Ron's mother is an intensely religious woman who tells Ron to do his best. "That' s what matters to God," she says. Filled with his parents' ideals and mor-als, he is proud tO be a Marine and consid-ers it his patriotic duty to fight Even his mother thinks that it's God's willfor him to go. Moreover, he is convinced that he will find his manhood in Vietnam.

As Ron prays privately about going to Vietnam, he asks God to help him make the right decision. Jumping from the high school prom to the battlefield, the horrors of war are depicted for the next 17 min-utes. He accidentally kills one of his own, then is hit by enemy fire which paralyzes him from the chest down.

Ron retreats to Mexico where other maimed veterans have gone to escape their problems and gets involved with drugs and prostitutes. To ease his guilt, Ron returns to the U.S. and confesses to the family of the fellow soldier he killed. By this time, he has made a complete tum-around, so he slips into the 1972 Republican National Convention as an angry, bitter anti-war protester.

Ron Kovic himself has said the film is about turning defeats in to victories, los~s

into gains. This is a great premise, and a biblicalone, but in the film the premise is

proved in a vacuum, with-

out any real re-liance on God,

the only One who can give us victory.

Extremely one-sided, the movie says that the Vietnam War was wrong, and doesn' t give anything but an emotional basis for its position. The realities of war . are horrible. However, in his classic study on the dynamics of war, the renowned author Clausewitz recognized: "Kind-hearted people might. . . think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, [but] pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy . that must be exposed ... I would be futile, even wrong, to try and shut one's eyes to what war really is from sheer distress at its brutality."

The film makes the point that the Viet-nam War did not have the support of the American people, which had a dramatic effect on how we fought the war, yet fails to mention that had the bombing ofNorth Vietnam not been stopped due to public pressure, the United States might have won the war. This is a major weakness of the film, but then Hollywood is known for propagandizing issues. Indeed, the film's credits end with: "In Memoriam,

Sent to recuperate in a Bronx VA hos- Abbie Hoffman." pita!, Ron endures rehabilitation in diffi- Idealogical flaws aside, the film in a cult-to-watch scenes composed of rats, technical sense is spectacular, gripping drugs and whores. He struggles to accept and very intense. Please note, however, his paralysis. His family life is a sicken- the offensive elements of language, vio-ing, ceaseless debate about the war as he lence and nudity listed above. Powerful questions their old values and patriotism. and emotionally intense, I wept during Ron lapses into alcoholism, and in one some of the war scenes. What a tragedy, wrenching scene, lashes out at this mother. though, that Ron's anger and frustration

The Counsel of Chalcedon April, 1990 page 23

saturate the picture, and he never recon-cil~swith his parents. One can't help but. compare him to Joni Eareckson !ada, and the very different Y!ay she dealt with her paralysis. Joni understandS the sover-eignty of God in adversity in a way that RonKoVic does not.

CaptainJeremiahDenton'sstorywould make a better Vietnamftlm. Shot down in 1965, he spent seven years ~ a POW camp, yet made the following statement, "We are ho~ored to have had the oppor-tuni.ty to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grate-ful to our Commander-in-Chief and to our nation for this day. God bless. Arne;!~"- ica."

It's possible that BORN ON TIIE 4TH OF JULY will win severaLOscars. However, your time would be better spent readingJ eremiah Denton's WHEN HElL WAS IN SESSION, or one Of Joni's books, or the Book of Job. We need to understand the sovereignty of God. This film will not help you understand it, but God's Word will.

Recommended Action: Please address your comments to: Tom Pollack, President, Universal Pictures, 100 Universal City, Uni-versal City, CA 91608. (818) 777-1000.

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