For Greater Glory - Review

For Greater Glory

Spanish title

Cristiada

Rated R‎‎ - (for war violence, some disturbing images) 

Parents Guide: View content advisory

Run time: 2hr 23min

Drama/War‎

Rating: B+

Director:  

   Dean Wright

Writer:

   Michael Love

Stars:  

   Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, Peter O'Toole, Oscar Isaac, Santiago Cabrera, Ruben Blades, Eduardo Verastegui, Bruce Greewood, Catalina Sandino Moreno

What price would you pay for freedom? An impassioned group of men and women each make the decision to risk it all for family, faith and the very future of their country. The long-hidden, true story of the daring people's revolt that rocked 20th Century North America. This is the chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929); a war by the people of Mexico against their atheistic government.

I saw For Greater Glory at the Friday midnight premiere and had the theater all to myself until one lone couple arrived during the coming attractions. Too bad, it should be seen, the film is particularly pertinent considering the current assault on religion in our own country with atheist radicals forcing anti-Christian restrictions on everyone via activist judges and the current administration's confrontation with the Catholic Church and its attempts to curtail constitutional rights to religious freedom, particularly those of Christianity.

Samuel Goldwyn, the legendary movie producer, once quipped, “Pictures are for entertainment; messages should be sent by Western Union.” Over the years there have been many films that have proven him wrong by both filling theaters and stirring the soul. It is my opinion that For Greater Glory can be added to that eminent list of movies that transcend simple entertainment.

This is an historical drama that you might enjoy with your family (although it could be too intense for your preteens due to the depictions of executions, war violence and torture, there is no profane language). It set records when it opened two weeks ago in Mexico (US premiere was June 1st).

Andy Garcia, who stars, spoke about the film saying: “It broke all records in Mexico as the second highest grossing film since Titanic. It’s a universal, international story for the world. It’s a story that needs to be told”, referring to the Cristero Wars which raged in Mexico from 1926 to 1929.

Fellow actor Eduardo Verastegui, who called this new film “the Schindler’s List of Mexico”, agreed. “I learned that the reason we weren’t taught this in public schools [in Mexico] is because it was an embarrassment to the government.” (read here: Giving It All Up for Faith - An Interview with Eduardo Verastegui) 

The movie, which also stars Eva Longoria and Peter O’Toole, asks the ever-important question “What price would you pay for freedom?” Peter O'Toole is still a formidable presence on screen. His performance as an aged foreign born priest is one of the strongest in the film. His character's exemplary life of kindness, wisdom, faith, dedication and martyrdom changes the life of a young prankster, Jose Sanchez.

One of the opening scenes depicts an eleven year old boy, José, and his friend playing a joke on the parish priest, Father Christopher (Peter O’Toole). José is caught by his father and brought to the priest so that he can make up for his wrong doing. The light-hearted priest plays down the matter of the joke, and the boy is taken under Father Christopher’s wing. Over the days that follow, a friendship forms between the priest and the boy. One day, José asks Father Christopher why he doesn’t go into hiding like many of the other priests. He tells the boy how God will watch over him in His house. The boy continues to insist, only for the priest to conclude, “There is no greater glory than to give your life for Christ.” These words impress José very much. A few days later, José is up in the bell tower marveling at the view of hills, when he notices government horsemen riding toward his village. He shouts to warn the people and then goes to find Father Christopher to warn him. José urges him to hide, but he refuses. He gives his rosary to José and sends him off. José returns to the bell tower from where he watches as his priest friend is brought out of the church and shot by a firing squad. As the squad prepares, it seems, aware of the others presence, that the priest and José are repeating the words from their perspectives, “There is no greater glory than to give your life for Christ.”

After the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917, President Calles of Mexico saw the Catholic church as an obstacle to his power. He imposed restrictions on the Church in the Constitution of 1917 to stamp out religion and forbade public worship overnight. The government between 1926-1929, the Cristero War, then exiled, jailed and killed many priests for criticizing the Calles government. Catholics were forced to worship underground, until they formed their own army, led by Andy Garcia's character, an agnostic/atheist General.

For Greater Glory tells of the grassroots uprising and counter-revolution against the corrupt Mexican government in response to severe persecution of Roman Catholics. Some of earliest atrocities by the administration of President Plutarco Elias Calles, that sparked the revolution included the murder and execution of priests who chose to resist the unlawful restrictions of the 1917 Mexican Constitution.

The life of the eleven year old Christero, Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio, is a secondary story within the films narrative.

Jose Sanchez joins up with the Christeros, eventually he is captured, witnesses the execution of another boy and friend by hanging, tortured and faced with the greatest decision of his young life.

The Pros and Cons:

Director Dean Wright, in his first film, has wisely cribbed from some masters of epic film.  Placing his cameras on rooftops and distant hillsides so we can understand the unfolding battle strategies (this technique perfected by Akira Kurosawa, with a few thousand additional extras however, in his classic war film Ran). He tightens the focus to capture human dramas amidst the smoke and blood of battle, a page taken from Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. And he sets before his protagonist a personal journey shaped by the wars raging both around him and inside his own soul (journeys recalled by anyone who’s sat enthralled through David Lean’s Bridge on the River Kwai or Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory). 

It is Lawrence of Arabia that keeps coming to mind and about halfway through you realize why, but of course! The wise old priest we meet in the opening minutes is none other than Lawrence himself, Peter O’Toole. Fifty years after that unforgettable debut, O’Toole is still a consummate screen actor. Here, facing death before a firing squad, his Father Christopher stands, firm in his commitment to his faith yet terrified for his flock, his eyes turned upward, beseeching God to watch over them.

Along with the Cristeros, For Greater Glory honors the contributions of the Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc, a covert women’s society that supported the war effort by smuggling supplies, information and even ammunition — the latter in custom-made undergarments. In this work, as a tense scene on a train illustrates, a wardrobe malfunction could lead to imprisonment or execution.

The films score is a little obtrusive at times in that it is too heavy handed. Always gentile and saintly when the Christeros are portrayed and dark and menacing when you see President Calles or any of the other antagonists.

Gorostieta (Andy Garcia) displays some complexity as a leader fighting on behalf of a faith he doesn’t share but is willing to appropriate for his purposes. He wears a large crucifix and uses "God talk" with the troops, though it’s not always clear whether, or how, he believes what he’s saying or when he starts to believe it. When Father Vega says Mass at one point, Gorostieta pointedly sits aside, smoking a cigar. Yet rubbing elbows with God has a way of changing a person, and Gorostieta’s imperceptible transition toward faith is credibly depicted, whether or not it’s historical.

Father José Reyes Vega (Santiago Cabrera), an important Cristero general, takes up arms, contrary to the demands of his clerical state. Other than that, he is a picture of piety — in marked contrast to the historical Vega, a notorious libertine whose most infamous crime, involving a train holdup, is here depicted as an accident and then forgotten with unseemly haste.

 

Another flaw is how black and white the differences are between the two sides. There is never any hesitation or any sign of conflict among the Fedrales as they carry out the orders of the Calles government, torturing and killing their fellow citizens. In reality there were many defections from the military as the war progressed.

One of the film’s most intriguing character is a rugged rancher named Victoriano Ramirez (Oscar Isaacs, The Nativity Story), nicknamed El Catorce (The 14) in honor of an incident involving an ill-fated posse sent to kill him. Ramirez is basically a thug, but a thug with some noble impulses, and his character has the greatest potential for moral corruption or redemption.

That sequence involving the posse is one of the film’s best action set pieces, along with an ambush in a sleepy pueblo.

Whether For Greater Glory ultimately take its place among war classics is yet to be seen? Today’s filmgoers have little patience for a war film that doesn’t involve space aliens or trolls so I have a sad, gut feeling that it might not. However, as a reminder of how the movies can indelibly shape our view of history. For better or worse, For Greater Glory will most likely, in time, become the accepted account of what is now known as Mexico’s Cristero War.

It is estimated that 250 thousand persons died, including citizens and soldiers during the Cristero War.

Below is a short video history of the Christero War produced by Arizona State University.

  Click here to read more on the history of Christero War

Below are some historical photos from the armed struggle.

Jose Sanchez

José Luis Sanchez Del Rio was born in Sahuayo, Michoacan (Mexico), March 28 1913 by parents Macario Sánchez, María del Río. Visiting the tomb of the blessed martyr Anacleto González Flores, he asked God to die in defense of the faith. Just fourteen, José Luis was murdered February 10, 1928, during the religious persecution in Mexico, as belonging to the Cristeros, a large Catholic group that was opposed to the oppression of President Plutarco Elías Calles regime.

This film is about a Catholic struggle, I am not Catholic but the current political agenda is not against Catholics only but against Christianity in its entirety. This is the opinion of a Catholic business woman who has seen the film:

This movie brought home a very real possibility, the possibility that this could happen in America. I could not help but compare Plutarco Elias Calles, the president of Mexico at the time of the Cristeros War to Barack Hussein Obama, the president oppressor we currently have. Calles, an extremist in anti-clergy, signed the ‘Law for Reforming the Penal Code’, known throughout Mexico as the ‘Calles Law’. This law gave specific consequences for priests and other Catholics if the provisions of the 1917 Mexican Constitution were violated.

Article 3 of the (Mexican) constitution required that education, in both public and private schools be completely secular and free of any religious instruction and prohibited religions from participating in education - essentially outlawing Catholic schools or even religious education in private schools. Article 3 likewise prohibited ministers or religious groups from aiding the poor, engaging in scientific research, and spreading their teachings. The constitution prohibited churches to own property and transferred all church property to the state - thus making all houses of worship state property.

The war with the Catholic Church is real. The battle for our First Amendment, freedom of religion is a very real war, as it touches every religion in America not just the Catholic church. If Hussein can bring down the Catholic Church in America he can conquer America.