Pulpmovies Reviews

V for Vendetta starts by providing a bit of British history. In 1605 a group of Catholic plotters planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament. They failed and, on 5th November, Guy Fawkes was caught underneath the House of Lords with gunpowder, matches and touchpaper. Fawkes was arrested and, in 1606, executed.

The film itself is set in the near future. America has collapsed into civil war and, in Britain, power hungry politician, Adam Sutler (John Hurt) has cashed in on a terrorist crisis to turn the country into an authoritarian dictatorship with heavy religious overtones.

Evey (Natalie Portman), an assistant at the government controlled television station and aspiring actress, is out after curfew when she runs into trouble in the form of a gang of thugs. She realises that she’s in much bigger trouble than she initially thought when it turns out that these thugs are part of Sutler’s secret police.

Enter V (Hugo Weaving), a Guy Fawkes masked hero, and Evey is saved. But it’s not over yet because V is also a terrorist with a penchant for explosives. And Evey, whether she likes it or not, is now involved in his campaign…

V for Vendetta is probably the first truly memorable film to be released in 2006. Unsurprisingly, given that the film was written by the Wachowski brothers and that director James McTeigue was previously the assistant director on the Matrix films, the set pieces are spectacular. But what really held the film together for me was the relationship between V and Evey. It’s this relationship that imbues the film – which could easily have become yet another special effects driven extravaganza – with a level of humanity that is essential to both the story and the ideas that underlie it.

Of course, the other thing that sets this film apart is that it is a very political film and one that explores a number of ideas, several of which are not only very true but also in dire need of airing.

The underlying premise of the film is that in times of crisis – whether it’s real or perceived – politicians respond to the pressure to “do something” by passing poorly considered laws that chip away at established liberties, often without having any real effect on the perceived crisis. And once these liberties are lost, become very difficult – if not impossible – to recover.

The proof of this can be seen in the US in the case of the Patriot Act and in Britain with the government’s attempts to introduce ID cards, extend the limit for detention without charge and the frighteningly vague anti-terrorism legislation.

The character of Adam Sutler is also well worth discussing. Not only for the depiction of the way in which an unscrupulous politician can exploit a moral crisis for his own aims, but for the way that religious belief can be exploited to justify any act.

And this, of course, brings us to V. V is unquestionably a terrorist; he’s driven by a desire for vengeance and is seeking to violently overthrow the existing government. And this, of course, raises the rather uncomfortable question of how much our definition of terrorism is defined by perspective.

V for Vendetta is an adaptation of the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd and, visually, its comic book roots are apparent. That said, the look of the film is a little more generic than that of the book – where Lloyd envisioned a grimly dystopian future London, McTeigue’s London is much like the modern city. This, I think, adds to the strength of the film by bringing the events that much closer to home.

This is probably the most faithful adaptation of any of Alan Moore’s work to date, which isn’t really saying a great deal when you consider what has gone before. The major themes and story elements from the original although there are differences – most significantly in that the original story was an outraged reaction to the unyielding Thatcherism of ‘80s Britain while the film version unashamedly introduces a post 9/11 sensibility. These changes, however, do work not only in storytelling terms (apart from a couple of stumbles), but also in terms of retaining the relevance of the original in the present day.

V for Vendetta is, unashamedly, an action film. But it’s an action film with something to say, about moral panics, creeping authoritarianism, about the power of symbols and about individual resistance.

The film throws up questions rather than answers, but these are questions that need to be asked and for this reason, if no other, it is a film that is well worth seeing.

It helps, of course, that the action parts of the film are all suitably spectacular.

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