Heart of the Beholder (2005)

Drama /
5.7/10

Heart of the Beholder Storyline

Based on the true story of a family who opened the first videocassette rental stores in St. Louis in 1980. The family was ruined by a corrupt prosecutor who had been blackmailed by a religious group because the family refused to remove Martin Scorsese’s controversial film, “The Last Temptation of Christ”, from their stores.

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Heart of the Beholder Movie Reviews

Freedom of speech and watching movies

In the 1980s, a chain of video clubs opened in St. Louis. But when the legendary Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” appears on the shelves, all hell breaks loose on the owner and his family. A group of religious fanatics is trying in every way to force him to withdraw the film from distribution or to kick him out of business, but he decides to fight for freedom of speech and choice at all costs. Years later, he decides to tell his story through this film, which he wrote and directed himself. As this is his first and only film, it is not particularly good in any aspect, but because of the story it tells and the message it sends, it is worth watching.

6/10

Disappointing – should have been rated for its porn content

I was very interested to learn about this supposed based-on-real-life story of censorship campaign by religious folks, but was completely unprepared for the porn content. It was such a disappointment! It may very well have been intended to highlight an important cultural issue, but I could not stomach the rest of the film – nor can I recommend it at all.

Surely any corruption that may have led to the banning of Martin Scorcese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” in the community in question could have been portrayed better and without putting younger viewers at risk. As a teacher, I would have liked to had the film as a resource to spark discussion of the issues in class, but this film – sadly – would be completely inappropriate and unusable in that context. Such a wasted opportunity!

The mood of the film was also very heavily negative and one-sided, reminiscent of a political campaign rather than an educational or informative film. A better film would have compassionately portrayed both sides of the issue well enough to have sparked true debate. A documentary or docudrama, this is not.

Excellent presentation of a controversial subject/

Since this movie deals with the controversial issue of freedom of expression of even disagreeable subject matter, it is bound to elicit extreme views on all sides of the issue. HEART OF THE BEHOLDER successfully deals in a humanistic way with the controversy surrounding one business and it’s belief in the free market system of making video tapes of commercial movies available for sale to those who were interested. This did not mean pornography, but rather several main stream movies that aroused objections because they dealt with subject matter that often challenged certain strongly held beliefs. While the movie definitely has a point of view, it fairly deals with all facets of the controversy and delivers an emotional impact in telling it’s heartbreaking story.

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