The Mission (Two-Disc Special Edition) | 
 enlarge | Director: Roland Joffé
Actors: Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Ray Mcanally, Aidan Quinn, Cherie Lunghi
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $26.98
Buy New: $18.99
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Rating:  217 reviews
Sales Rank: 2265
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 125
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.6 x 0.6
MPN: D23497D
ISBN: 0790775581
UPC: 085392349722
EAN: 9780790775586
ASIN: B00003CXBH
Theatrical Release Date: October 31, 1986
Release Date: May 13, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Roland Joffé (The Killing Fields) directs this fuzzy effort at a David Lean-like epic without David Lean's sense of emotional proportion. Lean's most important screenwriting collaborator, Robert Bolt, in fact wrote The Mission, which concerns a Jesuit missionary (Jeremy Irons) who establishes a church in the hostile jungles of Brazil and then finds his work threatened by greed and political forces among his superiors. Robert De Niro is briefly effective as a callous soldier who kills his own brother and then turns to Irons's character to oversee his penance and conversion to the clergy. The narrative and dramatic forces at work in this movie should be more stirring and powerful than they are--the problem being that Joffé is too removed from them to allow us in. --Tom Keogh
Product Description
Sweeping and visually resplendent The Mission is a powerful action epic about a man of the sword (Robert DeNiro) and a man of the cloth (Jeremy Irons) who unite to shield a South American Indian tribe from brutal subjugation by 18th-century colonial empires. It reunites key talents behind The Killing Fields: co-producer David Puttnam director Roland Joffe and cinematographer Chris Menges. Winner of the 1986 Cannes Film Festival Best Picture Award the film earned seven Academy AwardO nominations* (including Best Picture) and won a Best Cinematography OscarO. Robert Bolt's throughtful screenplay and Ennio Morricone's rich score won Golden Globe Awards. The Mission is screen storytelling that weaves a haunting spell.Running Time: 125 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085392349722
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| Customer Reviews: Read 212 more reviews...
 History is not dead by repetitive and cycliical September 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A film that comes from so far away 22 years ago that the story, or the history, of the film is no longer important, but was it important even in 1986? Today the struggle between the two Christian kings of Portugal and of Spain on one hand, though hostile to each other when the other party is absent, and the church on the other hand, a church that is also divided between the European hierarchy that only sees the survival they have to go through in Europe by defending there their interests by sacrificing a few missions in South America. Today these details are irrelevant The Christian church or churches have long abandoned this kind of policy, particularly the Catholic church. But today the general pattern of the story, the massacre, the slaughter, the slaying of a whole Indian, local population to the sole interest of the colonial powers who try to put their hands on the riches and resources of some foreign countries, like oil in Iraq for instance is quite a familiar story. And what about that American war hero who became an American war hero in a war that killed several million people and devastated a whole country for the sole political and economic interests of one country, one country alone. Who cares in the west about the local indigenous population that gets killed by western bullets? Like The Sons of The Pioneers used to sing, "Lie Low, Little Doggies, Lie Low on the Ground". We are living in a world that stands upside down in two ways. It is still standing upside down if we consider normal human ethics that tells us to help the poor and the weak and to respect the goods and property of other people, particularly their national territory. And yet that world that is upside down is in the process of tilting over and then getting upside down a second time, which might bring it upside up and downside down. The champion of deregulated free market jungle economy is nationalizing most of the American banking system and is getting ready to do the same with the car industry that has been playing with bankruptcy for quite a few years now. Less state he says the candidate of the party of this president. Yet this president nationalizes all that is getting into difficult straits by their own fault, but he does not forget that public money is the property of the rich since they did not contribute much and he is trying to give them a financial bonanza for their dumb incompetence. You see the pattern. That pattern that is still alive like hell and kicking like a dumb mule. Don't worry, as usual, before the world gets back to upright many people will be killed and will die. Before Brazil got a president that is starting the reversal of that historical injustice and mistake of 1750, quite a few millions were killed or enslaved or tortured or assassinated or whatever provided death was the end of it. But this film gives you another element of that pattern. The powerful who plan to genocide you manage to present the whole matter in such a way that you have to agree to foot the bill which will hurt you or otherwise the depression that would ensue would not only hurt, it would bring humanity a few hundred million individuals down, lower and shorter. And in the back of their heads they believe that this is sustainable since for at least twenty or thirty years the overpopulation of the world will be slowed down. As these vultures would say: there is always a positive point in any negative event. But the more I try to think positively the more I stand on the side of all these priests, these Jesuits, those who fought and died fighting and those who did not fight and died trying to bring God's word down on earth. The only thing that came for all of them was bullets, bullets and more bullets. Is that pattern human, historical, or plain characteristic of one particular period? But why does it come back up so regularly through the centuries?
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
DeNiro & Iron's Mission June 30, 2008
I first saw this thought-provoking film on the big screen in 70mm and believed it to be one of the best films of the 80's. Unfortunately the film opened to disappointing business in the U.S. but did much better in Europe (It received a Golden Palm at Cannes). DeNiro and Irons each give excellent performances of 2 men caught in conflict over the problems of church vs state in the colonization of the tribes in the Americas. Many people thought this to be a religious film but it is far more than that. Rather to divulge a lot about the plot, I would rather imply that this film is a triumph in the sense that it is action filled spectacle that makes us think rather than just entertain us. It's too bad that director Roland Joffe has descended nowadays to doing a slasher film with an American actress (Elisha Cuthbert). Anyway do see this film for the direction, the stars and of course, the evocative score by Ennio Morricone who should've won the Oscar that year.
My thoughts on The Mission May 9, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had to watch this moving in a spanish class I took in college. I believe the movie has a powerful story of showing how the Spainards and Porgues conquored the indians of Brazil. I think it can relate to England and other European countries conquoring the new world. This moving did make me tear up at the end when they massacured tribes.
The Mission 1986 - Post review March 6, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This movie was compelling & full of breathtaking scenery in Columbia which was based upon the Indian tribes in the upper regions high above cascading waterfalls, to be converted by Christianity. Robert De Niro & Jeremy Irons were the leading characters of this beautiful movie which encapsulated the heart in a spellbound though dramatic conclusion. I found that these actors put more emphasis on the culture of the tribes people and their way of life which was combined to give the audience a sense of warm embrace towards the suffering and cruelty acts which occurred between the late 1700's to the early 1800 year period. A MUST HAVE for any serious Movie Buff who wishes to transcend back in time to a civilization rich & full of culture. 5 Star rating applicable.*****
The reviewer's got it wrong! February 18, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Tom Keogh's editorial review got it wrong. This is a magnificent movie. The background is historically accurate. The music, much of which was written by South American composers during the 17th century, is flawlessly performed. The story is gripping, and one comes away with an accurate picture of what was going on at the time. It's one of the best movies I've seen in many years.
It seems that not many customer reviews agree with Tom Keogh.
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