Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Excellent but underrated film

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Still another example of Hollywood's contempt, incomprehension and condescension in relation to the South and the working class. This shrill, hysterical nonsense pretends to be satire and a film version of Flannery O'Connor. Another, more recent example is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, written and directed by a London elitist, which even includes a copy of Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find in a set (the sign office). Absurdity of absurdities, these elitists tell us what to think and how to vote.

... if I disliked it so much the first time why did I watch it again? I had to look up something about the story from which this film was adapted to get some things straight. Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif) is returning from the Korean War in the novel. This is never mentioned in the film. Since this film was made in 1979 and people seemed to be wearing the fashions of the 70's in the film, I assumed Hazel was returning from the Vietnam War. Plus when Hazel returns to his family homestead, finding it abandoned and in ruins, there is a headstone that says 1924 -...and the date of death is deliberately covered with weeds. I assumed this was one of Hazel's elders, so it would make sense that they set the film in the present (the 1970's, not the 1950's). But there is one other thing that really bothered me. I was a teenager in the 1970's in the south, and young people did not throw the N-word around like they did in this film. It was considered very backwards and rude among young people by then, although the older folks were a different story. Now back to the movie.The film keeps Hazel's motivations a complete mystery, although he seems to be on some kind of spiritual journey. Because the clothes he bought when he was picking civilian clothes make everyone assume he is a preacher, everybody asks him where he preaches and what he believes, so he is constantly saying he doesn't believe in anything. But it gets his mind on the subject. He notices that everywhere there are slogans about religion. A big neon sign flashes "Jesus cures". There is also a big rock with a Bible verse on it. So Hazel decides to start preaching about founding a "Church Without Christ", and strangely enough he gathers a crowd and even a competitor. He becomes fascinated with a blind preacher and moves into the same rooming house as him, but unfortunately the preacher's daughter becomes fascinated with Hazel.The problem is, Hazel never talks about what he really is after, and on top of that he is completely unlikeable. He never shows a shred of kindness or decency to anybody and may have possibly killed somebody, although that isn't clear, in part because Hazel seems to care so little that he MIGHT have killed this person. He drives away from the scene, unafraid that the guy might be dead and that the police might be after him. The one thing Hazel does believe in? This broken down Edsel that he bought for 250 dollars. He has to jump wire it to start it if it starts at all, water is literally pouring from the radiator, and the tires are bald. He answers everybody who calls it a hunk of junk with "This is a good car!". He has no doubts. He seems as silly and staunch in his belief in this car as he seems to feel others are in their belief in religion. Then one day it is proved that the car is indeed a hunk of junk, and then Hazel's life takes an unexplained turn for the much worse.If you can take a film with absolutely no likable characters, but that takes an unexpected turn at every junction, I'd recommend it. Just be prepared to be very confused and possibly offended.

So John Huston's "Wise Blood" is a cult adaptation of a cult novel, and has a very cult-y feel to it, as in offbeat and satirical.It's also a film with a lot of odd scenarios and very strange, earnest characters that try to reach out to the main character of Hazel Motes. Hazel has just returned from an unspecified war, and has a lot of foul baggage that he carries around from his days as the son of a manic preacher.People try to get to know this defiant, and sometimes irrational man, but the only thing he has on his mind is spreading the idea that people don't need Jesus to save them. The only problem is, he's living in a community where Jesus is the bedrock of every day life."Wise Blood" has a few faults though. Sometimes the characters border on downright irritating, and there seems to be a curious lack of momentum to the story. The filmmakers seemed to dryly interpret the source material, and figured the result would be able to stand on its own. But the viewer is quite often left in the dark to a lot of the events. One part of the climax has a character blinding himself with chemicals, and this should have been the most dramatic part of the story, but is instead almost glossed over so matter-o-factly that it only further alienates the viewer from understanding the character motivations.Believe me, it's a Weird film with a capital W. But from amongst it, the towering Brad Dourif shines in an attention-grabbing role, and he only shows his range and talent as a character actor. There are times when he becomes so fixated with fighting back against those he thinks are 'hypocrites' that he becomes almost frightening. The only problem is that the rest of the film is somewhat lackadaisical about its more disturbing content, and the lassez-faire attitude keeps the audience at arms length throughout.What it lacks in direct punch, "Wise Blood" makes up for as a twisted morality tale on the lengths that religious obsession and guilt will string those along, in this very dark comedy. A low 7 from me.

This is not an easy movie to get a handle on, so I'm not surprised reviewers either love it or hate it. Now, I've neither read the O'Connor novel nor lived in the South nor read the Bible since Sunday school. As a result, I have to take the movie as just that, a movie, without benefit of outside comparison.I get the impression that underneath all the black humor and exaggerated characters, something profound is going on. But exactly what? Perhaps you need that outside reference to penetrate the subtext. Then again, perhaps the profound subtext is illusory, like Hazel's view of Christianity, such that the narrative amounts to little more than artfully eccentric entertainment, courtesy sly old John Huston.The following are what I hope are helpful interpretations, generally not emphasized by other reviewers, many of whose commentaries were, nonetheless, very helpful to me.Above all, Hazel has come to hate hypocrisy. His motto appears to be: If you own the Truth, then live it. For Hazel, Truth is the illusory nature of Christian metaphysics, (a disavowal that doesn't necessarily equate with atheism), and by golly he's going to live that truth in his own peculiar way. Thus, the hard-eyed obsessive stare, the refusal of commitment sex (Sabbath) but not commercial sex (an over-priced 4 dollars), and the rather heartless rejection of the pathetically friendless Enoch. In short, like his adversary, the true Christian proselytizer, Hazel is a driven man.The trouble is that he knows only one way of spreading his truth-- by preaching angrily on street corners. Worse, his gospel is one of pure and insistent negatives (perhaps why atheism has never been popular), for example,"when you're dead, you're dead!" -- not exactly a crowd-pleaser. Nor, for that matter, is he going to allow Preacher Sholes (Ned Beatty) to dilute that negative message with a crowd-pleasing brand of hucksterism. Hazel may be strange, but he is no hypocrite.Now, it's clear that the broken-down jalopy means more to Hazel than just another hunk of iron. He's always praising it, even as it coughs smoke and bleeds fluids. It's his chariot, and while it might not take him to heaven, it will take him to the next town to spread his Word. Note that he even uses it to slay the pathetic pretender who would take his place on the street corner. Moreover, it's not until Hazel loses that chariot (hilariously) that he takes on the role of the martyred prophet. After all, rejection now means he has no other place he can get to.For me, the most revealing part of the film is Enoch's (Dan Shor) pathetic efforts at establishing contact with another human being. Huston, of course, doesn't play up the sentiment, but it's there anyway. Also, this may constitute the most damaging perspective on the dominant Christian culture of the movie-- even more damaging than Hazel's centerpiece non-belief. After all, if Jesus' message is unconditional love, why is Enoch alone and abandoned in an empty world of nominal Jesus followers. Nor, for that matter, is Hazel's brand of soulless non-belief any help either.Then too, just count the number of happy smiles in the film-- practically none, except when the kids are reaching out to the fake human, Gongo the gorilla. Poor Enoch thinks that by donning Gongo's costume, people will finally reach out to him. But there's no such contact in this atomized world of social rejects. In fact, a dominant theme appears to be just that, rejection-- Hazel rejects Jesus, Sabbath, his landlady, Enoch, Preacher Sholes, while even the cop rejects Hazel's jalopy, at the same time, the whole seedy community rejects Enoch. Quite a commentary on an environment where Jesus is advertised on every big rock and sold on every street corner as a friend to the friendless.Now, I don't know if there is any particular moral to the foregoing, but if there is, I suspect it's not a comforting one. Anyway, the movie is full of colorful characters, offbeat situations, and is never, never predictable. So, like the film or not, I expect that it's one you're not likely to forget.