Seven of the nine main characters in their chapel huddling as a helicopter gunship hovers outside -- one of the scenes that makes for suspense sans any 'real' action.

Never from this movie would I have expected suspense, but for most of its two hours “Of Gods and Men” made me feel like I was watching a Jason Bourne flick instead of one about a gentle group of French monks. Never mind it had no action hero.  Actually, there was no action – and only the faintest insinuations of graphic violence.

Instead the movie, in French with subtitles, makes high drama out of the inner agonies of nine mostly aging French Trappists in a setting that barely strays beyond the walls of their simple Algerian monastery.

And that’s why I’m recommending it to friends as a must-see film. It shows the meek have a shot of inheriting the Earth and Hollywood too. [Read more...]