V for Vendetta

What’s the Story?

More generic action movie than philosophical investigation, V FOR VENDETTA focuses on a young woman's political education. The underlying, irresolvable question has to do with terrorism: why and how are people pushed to commit it, and what might it achieve, aside from fear and oppression? Can calculated violence, ever, as its proponents argue, lead to "freedom"? At the center of is masked terrorist V (Hugo Weaving), who battles against a very corrupt British regime. Out after curfew, Evey (Natalie Portman) is about to be raped by some bad cops when V appears, kills them, and initiates his instruction of the vulnerable Evey in his anarchistic plot. V's rage is fueled by the usual superhero's past trauma. While the movie allows that torture only reproduces terrorism and violence, it also presents V's scheme as revolutionary and effectively symbolic. While V is hunted by a decent cop Finch (Stephen Rea), he keeps Evey at his secret lair, where he makes her tea and eggs for breakfast. Her eventual escape only leads her to a more awful place, imprisoned and tortured. At last, she admits, she is no longer afraid to die. And in this, she finds what V calls "freedom."

Is It Any Good?

Heavy-handed pronouncements exemplify V for Vendetta's distrust of viewers to interpret what they see, making the film's political and social commentary seem more cartoonish than insightful. Yes, imperialism is really bad, and yes, Nazi-ish iconography is a sure sign of a regime's need for change. What's less clear, and could use some reflection, is how V's violent acts will or will not produce more victims and vigilantes. "Freedom and justice are more than words," he says, "They are perspectives." And as such, they need rethinking at every step.