4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Full Screen, July 18 2005
This review is from: Missionary, the (DVD)
The information Amazon gives on this DVD does not stipulate whether it is wide-screen or full screen. I purchased on the assumption that it was the theatric release ratio but it is the full screen version. If this is what you want, fine, but otherwise watch out. I am not giving a review because full screen movies are not worth watching.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Strange, funny, with good performances, by Palin, et. al., July 7 2004
This review is from: Missionary, the (DVD)
This movie, about a missionary, who comes back from Africa, and is about to get married to his highly organised [British spelling] fiance, is given an assignment by his bishop, to "convert" the "fallen women" (prostitutes) of England. With funny performances by Palin, Maggie Smith (stunningly attractive in an aristocratic way), Phoebe Nicholls, as his future wife (you have to see the movie to see if he marries her), and others, presents a wickedly funny look at a man who seeks to do good, in the face of temptation. Not bad.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
The cleric and the working girls, Jan 23 2004
This review is from: Missionary, the (DVD)
Sometimes, life among the "uncivilized" is less taxing.
Michael Palin is the Reverend Charles Fortescue, an Anglican cleric recalled to England in 1906 after spending the previous ten years in the bush among African tribesmen. Charles happily anticipates marriage to his sweetheart of long standing, Deborah (Phoebe Nicholls), and, perhaps, a posting as the vicar of a country church in the south of England. If he only knew, poor devil, he might have elected to stay on the Dark Continent.
THE MISSIONARY encompasses three subplots. While silly and demanding Deborah plans the wedding, she allows her beloved not even so much as a kiss on the cheek before the vows are solemnized. Until then, her great passion is for her system of filing papers and correspondence, an interest about which she prattles on endlessly. In the meantime, the Bishop of London gives Charles his new assignment - to establish a halfway house for prostitutes in the squalid London Dockyards. But the greatest threat to Fortescue's peace of mind is the bored and lusty wife of a filthy rich and semi-senile old Lord (Trevor Howard), Lady Isabel Ames (Maggie Smith), who offers herself in exchange for financial backing of the Mission for Fallen Women. Before long, Charles has problems with the gentler gender, especially when his redeemed working girls begin showing their, um, appreciation for his kind and sensitive nature. It doesn't help Fortescue maintain a stiff upper lip that he's a closet sensualist too long denied.
THE MISSIONARY, described as a "gentle satire", doesn't really work because the separate parts never mesh as well as they could. Deborah remains clueless virtually throughout; the complication represented by Lady Isabel veers off into a clumsily done sidebar involving an attempted murder; the relationship between Charles and his flock is quickly left behind. There aren't enough chuckles to recommend this film, although the best are perhaps when the butler employed by Lord and Lady Ames first ushers Fortescue into a country palace so huge that the guide gets hopelessly lost. Or when the sudden death of a terminally aged, potential benefactor goes unnoticed by Charles while expounding at length on the spiritual needs of the deprived underclasses.
A much classier comedy about an Anglican minister unnerved by the pesky existence of sex is SIRENS (1994), which benefits from the discomfiture of Hugh Grant in the lead role faced with an unashamedly unclothed bevy of Babes that includes supermodel Elle Macpherson.
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