It seems to me that this film should be viwed from a couple of aspects, that is, looking just at the film itself, and examining it in view of the congtroversy that has been associated with it from even before it was shown. As a film, I think that is excellent from many standpoints: acting, casting, photography, makeup, costumes, scenery, soundtrack, and the telling of the Passion story itself. It certainly is much better on all of those points than a great many movies that Hollywood has turned out lately that garner the reverential Oohs and Aahs of film critics. With respect to the controversy surrounding this production, there have been an awful lot of negative comments, criticisms, and outright attacks on this film that seem to be based more on emotion or liberal ideology than on what I perceive to be fact. The first rumblings about anti-Semitism came befoer anyone actually saw the film. I just saw the film and failed to discern anything that can be construed as anti-Semitism. Historically and factually, there were basically two groups of people involved: Jews and Romans. Christ was a Jew; Christ was killed by the Romans, but at the instigation of the Jews. This doesn't make the film anti-Semitic, any more than it makes it anti-Italian. I'm not too sure how we can spin, twist, distort, or alter the historical context. It's like trying to ignore that it was Germans who killed Jews during the Holocaust. I don't remember hearing mcuh about Schindler's List being an anti-German movie; it was historical fact, and whoever the players were, they were. Bad things happen historically. To say that this movie is anti-Semitic (especially before seeing it, or even without seeing it) is not accurate at all. However, different people look at the same facts differently and come to their own conclusions (sometimes erroneously). The next charge leveled at this movie is that it is violent (it is), or that it is too violent (that is arguable). Personally, although not denying that it was graphically violent (it would be foolish to deny the obvious truth), I can't in all honesty say that it was substantially more violent that plenty of other Hollywood productions. Lots of blood and wounds, but making a movie about a crucifixion and not depicting that kind of violence is like making a war moview without showing any wounds or death (how about some of the graphic mutilations in Saving Private Ryan, or Band of Brothers?). It didn't seem to me have an unrelenting obsession with cruelty and brutality, not do I think it was some kind of diabolical (pun intended) scheme by Gibson to make money at the box office; I believe that Mel was prepared to kiss his $25 million investment goodbye, if need be. The comments by Moosekarloff seem to betray a bit of an anti-Catholic bias (i.e., ...typical RC anti-semitism..., whatever that's supposed to mean). Now the latest round of liberal criticism seems to be centered on pornography and masochism. What's pornographic about this film? Christ in a loincloth? This is one of the most absurd accusations I have heard in this entire bruhaha. The masochism inference is, possibly from a strictly clinical standpoint, somewhat tenable, but this is a film about some nasty soldiers (and soldiers used to be just that in those days, before our culturally enlightened times) doing some really nasty things. Scourging, pretty much by definition, is masochistic if the guys doing it are enjoying it (which they seemed to be in this movie - bad, bad Romans, not bad Jews, you will note). So, we have to give credit to the media for continuing to stoke the files, calling this a bad movie, even though the box office returns show that most Americans don't necessarily agree with their judgement. This film is powerful, and doesn't leave too many people taking middle-of-the-road positions. You either like it (like most people seem to), believe in the story being told (like many, if not most), or just want to carp, criticize, find fault, or trivialize, like others. I guess Jesus would say the choice is yours to make.