First Reformed

2018 "The kingdom come undone."
7.1| 1h53m| R| en| More Info
Released: 18 May 2018 Released
Producted By: Killer Films
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: https://a24films.com/films/first-reformed
Synopsis

A pastor of a small church in upstate New York starts to spiral out of control after a soul-shaking encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife.

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Reviews

Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch
Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
jsteiger Having found some of Schrader's previous work interesting, and recognizing the potential in the movie's cast, I went in with high hopes.The hopes were not justified. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY. You'll leave the theater shocked and angry, unless your admiration for Schrader's previous work overrides your critical faculties.SPOILERS FOLLOW.The movie begins in promising fashion. Superb, yet subtle set design, marked by excellent, muted use of color and dim lighting to create a somber, depressed atmosphere. The leads are well cast.Unfortunately, the writing is extremely weak, and the entirely unnecessary, completely unbalanced and unsubtle, smack-you-over-the-head "environmentalist" message quickly carries us into cartoon territory.Nothing stands up to close examination. The priest learns that one of his parish members has "a problem." His wife is pregnant, he is obsessed with environmental pollution and nihilism, and doesn't want her to have the baby. After an awkward first meeting, during which we discover that the priest encouraged his son to go to Iraq where he died, and that his wife left him he agrees to meet with the young man a second time. In between, he discovers that the young man has constructed a suicide vest. At this point the narrative goes completely off the rails.It is clear that the young man is violently suicidal. Anyone with any sense of morality would immediately demand that the young man be taken into protective custody. Instead the priest, who has no known expertise in high explosives, carries the vest out to his car! Did anyone watching this film not notice that there was no "instructions manual" with the suicide vest? Nobody with an IQ above 70 would grab a packet of high explosives under these circumstances.The young man finds out that his suicide vest is missing, and shotguns himself to death. The priest, who consumes high quality whiskey like coffee, is extremely ill, and over the next few days finds the time to become an environmental extremist AND have a bizarre levitation-tryst with the comely wife of the suicide victim. The wife, played by Amanda Seyfried, reads some of the dumbest lines I've ever heard with earnest seriousness. One can only imagine the dozens of giggling outtakes generated during the filming of this scene. Totally unbelievable on any level.There is a "reconsecration" ceremony in the works. The priest plans to protest the destruction of the environment (I think---his motivation is a complete mystery) by blowing himself up (along with a bunch of parishioners, one would presume) with the suicide vest. Exactly how he has divined the correct operation of the vest is a complete mystery. Why he would want to kill numerous parishioners (or at least ruin their Sunday best clothing with a rain of his body parts) is an even bigger mystery.At the last minute, he changes his mind and wraps himself in barbed wire, at which point Amanda Seyfried enters his office and they start passionately kissing. Bam, the screen goes black, and the credits roll to an ominous, rumbling musical piece.Crazed environmentalists might somehow find an encouraging and/or meaningful message in all this. Personally, I found it to be incredibly arrogant and insultingly incoherent. The sensational violence in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull at least had some rational connection to a messages of alienation, and the character development in both movies was superb. In First Reformed, the character development is extremely weak and simply doesn't support the characters' behavior. What, precisely, motivates Amanda Seyfried to feel passion for this physically wrecked, horrendously depressed, nasty man? We saw him, in a previous scene, crush the feelings of his former lover Esther (played beautifully by Victoria Hill) as if she were some kind of insect.What about the heavy-handed use of environmentalist concern as the main motivation for the young man's suicidal depression? Schrader trots out the the "97% of climate scientists agree" canard. The study that yielded the 97% figure has been debunked so thoroughly that nobody with a shred of intellectual honesty uses it. Our rivers and streams are actually far less polluted now than they were 30 years ago. Yet, in short order, one man has blown his own head off and another is preparing to blow himself up over the issue. This movie had the potential to be great. A superb cast, some intriguing issues, a fine cinematographer. Schrader simply blew it with a lazy writing effort. His fans will find a way to praise this by simply ignoring his failure. Don't be fooled.
realityinmind This movie is not some great wonder of cinema that needs to be seen by everyone. This movie falls flat on so many levels. Nothing happens for the first 1 hr 15 min of the movie. And the movie is only 2 hours long. I mean, seriously.... nothing happens. The buildup is so slow it is uninteresting. And then it escalates rather quickly towards the end into the most anticlimactic finish imaginable. And if you know anything about Christianity and the Church you would know that a man in Ethan Hawke's character's position would never go the route that he did with such little justification SO QUICKLY. It is not feasible. It takes much more to "turn" someone (so to speak). I'm surprised Paul Schrader, who grew up in a Church of the same denomination and attained a theology degree (BA) in college, would attempt to paint things in such a weakly constructed light.And I'm not even a Christian. But I grew up in the Church and I know enough about it to know that this is not realistic.This movie seems more like liberal propaganda meant to undermine the meaning of Christianity. A person in Ethan Hawke's character's position is not so easily befuddled by the science discussed in this movie. And that is where the true light of this movie shines... on a science that Christians don't care about because they are not wrapped up in it and misinformed about it like mainstream liberals. But since they view it as their own religion they think that it is as strong as Christianity to a Christian. The term to describe this movie the best would be "boring". There are 5 interesting moments in this movie, and the first one doesnt occur for almost an hour. It should not take an hour to develop the character to the extent that Ethan Hawke's character was developed. The ending is RADICALISM. Horrible. 5/10.
Johnny Soory Aseel First of all, I must say that I only review movies that blow my mind or waste my time, and in this case, it is definitely the latter. I'm guessing this movie was meant to be thought provoking in regards to the serious environmental issues our world is suffering from. However, the poor writing, directing and its weak plot put your mind to sleep. It is extremely boring and flat in terms of dialogue and storytelling. After what happened in the forest, I thought the movie will take-off, but it did not. So, if the "thought provoking message" came towards the end of the movie, I guess I missed it because I fast forwarded it and watched some of it on mute while talking on the phone.
CRTC_Anarchist_1999 Complete waste of time! 3 out 10 is being generous.