V for Vendetta

By Bruce Bulloch

If, through some software error in the Bat-GPS, the Caped Crusader were to wander onto the set of "Good Night and Good Luck" the ensuing high-jinks would approximate what you get with "V for Vendetta".

As the movie begins, our heroine, Evey (Natalie Portman), a young Londoner of the not too distant future is getting ready to go out for the evening. We get the sense that all is not right in Evey's world. On the television a government talking head raves like the love child of Jerry Falwell and Bill O'Reilly, and once outside a loud speaker announces that a curfew is in effect. Evey is suddenly, for the simple act of walking down the street, a criminal. As Evey hurries along the sound track hints that she will soon be in need of her pepper spray and sure enough, she finds herself surrounded by government sponsored vigilantes.

In true comic book tradition, just as things are looking pretty black for Evey, a guy in a mask and cape shows up to bounce her tormentors off the brick walls of nearby buildings. But at the conclusion of her rescue he doesn't invite her back to the Bat Cave or anything like it. He takes her up on a rooftop to watch while he blows up a public building-on purpose! Now, even Spiderman, who is no stranger to reducing valuable real estate to rubble, usually does so as collateral damage in his overly exuberant pursuit of evil scientists. But Evey's new friend, Code Name V (Hugo Weaving) as he is formally known, and resplendent in a Guy Fawkes costume, has a bone to pick with the government.

"V for Vendetta" builds its story on forces and events close to home. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan show up in this movie, refusing to end, eroding international stability and domestic confidence. A mysterious pandemic (can we say "bird flu"?) has killed thousands and finally an ultra right-wing party has used public anxiety along with a blurring of religion and political ideology to gain power and undermine civil liberties.

Evey, who has been recorded by surveillance cameras in the company of V, now finds herself knee-deep in a blue state nightmare and forced to throw in her lot with him.

The movie finds itself in complicated territory as well, threading its way between political thriller and action fantasy. V is determined to wake up a cowed citizenry with one final grand act of real property terrorism to take place on November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day. At the same time V has some personal scores to settle and kills time waiting for November to come around by knocking off names on his hit list.

The decision to use politically charged source material for the story distracts from its comic book melodrama. You find yourself wondering how V's solutions would have played out in the real world. Would it really have advanced the cause of free speech if Edward R Murrow, for example, had surprised Senator Joseph McCarthy in the shower with a syringe full of poison? And in this post 9/11 world what kind of message do you really send by knocking down a building to make a political point? And, at the very least, what precautions did V take to make sure the guys from facilities management weren't still in there mopping floors and listening to Led Zeppelin CD's?

The magic and frustration of this movie is that it is often unintentionally thought provoking. It sacrifices some of its single-minded pulp energy but it does make for a more interesting conversation afterward.