The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 16, 2018

The Forgiven was obviously made with honorable intentions, and it has both a director noted for high minded “message” films as well as the kind of star performance that is obviously designed to garner attention during awards season. Unfortunately, the film has a number of issues, chief among them what I would jokingly call a “mustache problem”. That may sound odd, since this perceived predicament does not involve the character of Piet Blomfeld (Eric Bana), a former white supremacist South African who has been jailed in the wake of the fall of apartheid, and who in fact does sport some facial hair. No, this particular “mustache problem” involves the legendary Bishop Desmond Tutu (Forest Whitaker), who is completely clean shaven in the film. So what, pray tell, is this bugaboo? Exhibit A in this obviously cheeky analysis will be the relatively recent Kenneth Branagh remake of Agatha Christie’s iconic Murder on the Orient Express, where Branagh and his production design team decided that David Suchet’s elegantly coiffed (can a mustache be coiffed?) lip adornment in the old Agatha Christie: Poirot series wasn’t in keeping with Christie’s formulation that the inimitable detective had almost Yeti like facial hair. Anyone who has seen the newest version of Murder on the Orient Express will no doubt recall the almost insane aggregation of whiskers that are attached to Branagh’s face for his portrayal of Poirot (for those who haven’t seen the film, take a gander at the first screenshot in the Murder on the Orient Express Blu-ray review). It’s such a patently alarming “hairstyle” that it becomes the focus at times, rather than what’s going on around it (so to speak). While obviously not exactly the same, there’s a similar predicament involving makeup with regard to Whitaker and Tutu, since someone on the production staff of The Forgiven decided to “augment” Whitaker’s nose with a huge prosthesis meant to ape Tutu’s somewhat more prominent proboscis. It's the sort of change that instantly and probably unavoidably draws attention to itself, and for some viewers it may be the only thing they're able to focus on, which in one sense may at least provide distraction from a fairly heavy handed and screed like attempt to provide an account of Tutu's work on behalf of the so-called Truth and Reconciliation Committee that the beloved Bishop chaired as South Africa started to forge a more democratic union.

Director Roland Joffé hasn’t been known for being overly subtle when delivering cinematic sermons, either literally, as in The Mission, or figuratively, as in The Killing Fields, but he almost always fashions intelligent, even probing, films that seek to deal with sometimes troubling subject matters. All of those proclivities are on hand in The Forgiven, with the aching subtext of the horrors of apartheid underpinning a story that is ostensibly about grace and salvation, even for the “undeserving”.

But Joffé and co-writer Michael Ashton (the film is based on Ashton’s play The Archbishop and the Antichrist) don’t trust the viewer to provide the necessary context, and so the film relies on bookending printed “explanations”, and also on some overly rote structural conceits, including a prologue of sorts documenting a horrific incident involving a white child and some native Africans that of course ends up playing into the plot as certain (completely predictable) revelations are trotted out. While Tutu is tasked with granting amnesty (more or less, anyway) to former power wielders who now find themselves either incarcerated or at least relatively powerless and isolated, he's also on the hunt for what happened to a missing South African girl, in just one of many sidebars the film detours to at regular intervals. (To be fair, there is some attempt to knit at least some the seemingly disparate plot elements together as Blomfeld's background becomes clearer.)

The most visceral sequences in the film undeniably belong to the showdowns between Tutu and Blomfeld, one of those fictionalized “composite characters” who may represent the absolute worst of Mankind in general and South African whites in particular. It’s an over the top character to begin with, and perhaps surprisingly, then, Bana manages to make Blomfeld troublingly real feeling, with the character spitting out epithets at Tutu that are disgusting and making no issues about the fact that he wants a race war since he’s absolutely certain whites will prevail due to their “obvious” inherent superiority. It’s just inherently touchy stuff, and the screenplay is perhaps too willing to make Blomfeld the unrepentant (for a while, anyway) mustache twirling villain and Tutu the beneficent saintly presence who’s all about love and forgiveness.

The Forgiven probably unavoidably arrives at some emotional catharsis, simply because the horrors of apartheid are so overwhelming that any move toward what some call “racial justice” provides a sense of relief. But the film really should have been much more powerful, given its reliance on such an inherently moving history. Whitaker was a little too precious in his interpretation of Tutu for my personal tastes, but the scenes with an impressively reprehensible Bana really do pop with considerable tension and as examples of “two handers” in the realm of cinema, they provide some palpable energy.

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Forgiven is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The closing credits list the Panasonic VariCam as having digitally captured the imagery (the first such credit I can recall seeing), and The Forgiven is kind of a story of two environments in terms of its presentation. The outdoor material pops extremely well, with typically very good fine detail levels, a nicely suffused palette and overall commendable sharpness and clarity. The interior scenes are often pretty murky looking, often with a kind of milky haze overlaying things that can tend to push blacks toward grays and which also tends to prevent fine detail from resonating as well as it does in the outdoor material. Perhaps surprisingly, Lionsgate has put this out on a BD-50, despite the fact that the film is not all that long (two hours, give or take), and there are no supplements to speak of other than a few trailers for other Lionsgate releases.

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Forgiven features a workmanlike DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that tends to offer its surround activity in fits and spurts. An early riot scene is calamitous, with a lot of nice placement of crowd and police effects, as well as some rumbling panning as military vehicles plow through the populace, but scenes like that tend to be the exception rather than the rule in this fairly "talky" feature. Long sequences like some court material or even the scenes between Tutu and Blomfeld tend to have most of the sonic anchored front and center, with only occasional ambient environmental sounds dotting the side and rear channels. Zethu Mashika's score is rather impressive and fills the surrounds winningly.

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Don't be fooled by the so-called Special Features option on the Main Menu of this release. Those "special features" turn out to be trailers for Lionsgate products and bookmarks. Try not to get too excited.

The Forgiven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I kept wondering if there was a "nose wrangler" on set of The Forgiven, carefully taking measurements each day and making sure the makeup effect was meeting expectations. To be clear about it, it's not a good thing when a film about apartheid and salvation has me thinking about nose makeup (yes, this is said with tongue planted firmly in cheek). If you can get past this particular "mustache issue", there are some good performances here, especially by Bana, though Whitaker just didn't quite capture Tutu for me personally and seemed overly mannered much of the time. Technical merits are first rate for those considering a purchase.