Ben-Hur

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. “Ben-Hur” is a real movie; a golden standard you compare other pictures to. It sucks you into a grand story and takes you on an epic journey. It’s filled with a wide gamut of emotions and when it comes to the action, it’s some of the most thrilling sequences you’ll see. I know the 212-minute running time seems daunting but trust me, once you get your butt into that seat, it feels like nothing at all. In fact, I wish it were LONGER.

In AD 26, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) is a Jewish prince living in Jerusalem. Welcoming his childhood Messala (Stephen Boyd) after years apart, he is taken aback when he learns that the man has changed. After a bitter falling out, Messala uses an accident to propel himself upwards in the eye of Rome, at the Hur family’s expense. Sentenced to the galleys for life, Ben-Hen swears revenge.

This is a sublimely acted film. In just a few seconds of watching Ben-Hur and Messala interact, you grasp the full complexity of their relationship. Good friends long ago, torn apart by Rome’s occupation of Judea. You can sense the churning emotions beneath their conversation. How Messala sees non-Romans as barbarians and openly mocks them… but never really sat down to consider what he was saying until he is confronted with a Jewish man he respects and calls his friend. He’s suddenly stuck with making a choice: renouncing what he’s said to his centurion buddies for the last 5 years, or admit that he’s been wrong. The movie doesn’t spell out any of that. You just feel it. You can almost see the seething anger rising inside our hero as he tries to contain himself, how he knows how low Romans think of him but could stand it knowing that at least if they got to know him, they’d think differently. So betrayed, he doesn’t know if he wants to explode in a ball of rage, or burst into tears. This film is a lot of things, among them a tragedy, that two friends are now sworn enemies.

On his quest for revenge, Ben-Hur will go through a huge array of adventures, each more exciting than the last. The film is constantly re-inventing itself. There are elements of drama, romance, action and tragedy throughout, all blended seamlessly together. It’s like real-life. That’s the reason I wish the film was longer. The performances, the characters are so rich, every second with Ben-Hur or any of the people he interacts with are golden. When the film skips through large periods of time to get to the highlights of Ben-Hur’s suffering at the hands of Roman whips, I wanted to say “Hey! Slow down! I’ve dedicated my morning to this film, there’s no need to rush through any of it! ” The only people who claim this film to be too lengthy are the ones who haven’t sat down and watched it properly. Put that cell phone away, turn off the lights and get yourself some snacks so you don’t have to pause it and run off to the kitchen. This film deserves and earns your attention. Plus, there’s an intermission so you’ll get to go pee halfway through without missing anything!

While every aspect of the film is perfect – at least in my mind – there’s one distinct point that rises above the rest of the picture: the climactic chariot between Ben-Hur and Messala. The action sequence that makes you jaw drop and yell in excitement over and over. Like the rest of the film, it commands your eyelids open because it feels genuine. When you see chariot wheels crumble and the cart flips over, they did that. They built an arena, filled it with cheering, costumed extras and told the racers to go at it. There’s a high body count here and if I didn’t know any better, I’d tell you that they actually killed stunt people to bring this vision to life. It’s fast-paced, expertly edited, it’s charged with emotion as Ben-Hur’s journey is coming close to an end… It’s got the same qualities as “The Road Warrior” or old films where actors have to fight off wild animals. You can sense the fear that was present, that intangible aura that drenched the set as half the people stood amazed and the other half clasped their hands in prayer, hoping it would all go smoothly.

There’s a religious aspect to the film and it’s probably the most tasteful take I’ve ever seen. One of my biggest pet peeves in films is when characters “just happen to be there”. I’m not talking coincidences, I mean that if someone is living in 1865, in Washington D. C. and they say they’re about to attend a play… then you know they’ll be witnesses to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The film is set in Judea, while Jesus Christ was preaching his message of love to the masses, but it’s never in the foreground. Ben-Hur isn’t interested in love. He wants revenge! If anything, he deliberately pushes the parables into the background so he can complete his quest. You can’t miss the fact that there’s a Christian theme to this picture, but it’s not intrusive and neither is it hammy. It’s the antithesis of pictures we get in the theaters today like “War Room” or the “Madea Pictures” where every little problem magically disappears when people go to Church and there appears to be a goal to deliberately alienate non-believers.

I never felt the running time. You say you haven’t seen this movie? Come on over, we’ll watch it together. It’s so grand, so exciting, so engaging that I can’t wait to see it again. If the remake (which I’m heading to see at the theater shortly) is half as good, I’ll be overjoyed. “Ben-Hur” is, in every way, an epic film that you need to see. (On Blu-ray, August 28, 2016)