The story of the twisted relationship between a parole official (De Niro), a hustling convict (Norton) and the convict's seductive wife (Milla Jovovich), "Stone" skips the cat-and-mouse double-crosses to get at serious issues of faith, redemption and everything in between.
The important question -- why the United States hangs on to this barbaric treatment of human beings -- was obscured by the issue of his "redemption".
So we have given much thought to the issues of weakness and redemption, and the fact that our culture is highly quixotic when it comes to deciding who gets a second chance.
Spun around the tale of a young orphan discovering the truth about his heritage, this rich tapestry of interweaving narratives (a "diary of suffering") addresses issues of class, warfare, religion, redemption, love and death, heaven and hell, all with a deceptively deft touch.
Are people who are "wrong" on the issues beyond redemption, because of their physiological inability to help themselves?
Overt dramatisation will always risk looking crass, exploitative and inauthentic and I myself have winced at Hollywood attempts to tackle this issue in the grotesquely misplaced language of redemption and naive humanism.
"So they issued these bonds with the date of redemption so far in the future because they figured that once the City of New York annexed their town, then the City of New York would assume the payment of the bonds — which is exactly what happened".
Issues of age, nationality, religion and redemption are raised, with Clint continuing the argument he had with God in Million Dollar Baby.
Uri L'Tzedek seeks to connect the Jewish people's communal narrative of destruction and promised redemption to issues of social justice, which resound in us today.
