© Marie-Julie Maille / Why Not Productions, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Technically, SPC asked me to hold off publishing any proper reviews until the film's US release in February, so here's just a little tablet.
Of Gods and Men offers some interesting looks into a group of very Christian monks at the onset of Islamic fundamentalism beginning to take hold in the Middle East in 90s Algeria. A true story, director Beauvois offers thought pondering parallels to how the West should probably interact with the region through such turbulent times, offering messages of tolerance and education of Islam's more peaceful teachings. There were fascinating sequences that played out in the film, but they were put very few and far between tedious scenes of the monks' average everyday activities and the repetition of their standard protocol. Long stretches of largely uninteresting dialogue tried desperately to inject the screenplay's themes after the film had wasted much precious time with recounting very mundane daily lives of these monks, and ultimately made the film play out at an excruciating pace that made the two hours feel more like four to five.
Grade: C
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