Constantine

Constantine    (2005) Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz    Rated R
Contains Spoilers (It always helps if you have seen the movie)

I thought I would start with an easy one – a movie that is trying really desperately to have a message – and then discuss how close to brilliance the movie got with that message.   Constantine is an exploration of redemption and damnation, of heaven and hell, seen through the eyes of the confused and bewildered living who have not been sent to either one yet. 

“Heaven and hell are right here.  Behind every wall.  Every window. The world behind the world.”  John Constantine, Suicidal Demon Hunter

The movie goes to great lengths to subtly establish one fact, and that is that our direction is a result of our choices and our perception.  From its opening scene, a place on earth that is stripped of all beauty and life (somewhere in South America, I would assume) we are shown that heaven and hell can be right here and right now. 

The title character is a prime example of this point.  John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is a demon hunter.  In a story where Earth is merely a battlefield between God and the Devil for the souls of humans, he takes responsibility for policing up the demons that have crossed the line and reached too far into our world.  He doesn’t have too much respect for angels that do the same thing.  He is an enforcer of “the Balance,” maintaining fairness between heaven and hell on Earth.  He takes on this task joylessly, bitterly, sometimes even angrily, racking up numbers in the hope of redeeming himself for the life he took when he was younger. . . his own.    He hopes that by fighting on the side of heaven, he will one day be allowed to enter into heaven, even though, since he committed suicide as a younger person, he is told he is damned forever.

“Constantine:  What does he want from me?”  
“Gabriel:  Only the usual.  Self-sacrifice.  Belief.’”
Constantine knows that heaven and hell, that God and the Devil, exist.  He just doesn’t have any faith in them.  Gabriel tries to explain to Constantine that he is damned, not because he committed suicide when he was younger, but because he still, to this day, has no faith in God. 

“God’s a kid with an ant farm, lady.  He’s not planning anything.”

He has also spent most of his adult life slowly trying to kill himself again, this time by smoking.  Early into the movie, we find out that John is dying of very aggressive lung cancer.  The doctor says to Constantine: “You really need to prepare” People are saying this to him all along.  He’s just not hearing it.  He spends every day of his life committing tiny sins of negligence and self-abuse.  He is rude to everyone he meets.  He lives in an uncomfortable apartment and constantly drinks and smokes himself into a bitter hole. 

On the other side of this battle is Angie (Rachel Weisz), a cop whose twin sister has inexplicably committed suicide.  Angie is a person of great personal faith.  She goes to confession for deaths that she causes every day in the line of duty.   She turns to Constantine to help her solve the mystery of her sister’s death.   Constantine shows her how to find her way temporarily into hell so that she can see for herself what it is.

So what is hell? 

According to the imagery in the film, hell is Earth, stripped of all of its stability and structure: the room you are sitting in right now, destroyed in a fiery wind.  Hell is peopled by suffering souls being torn to pieces by demons.  The demons are missing the top halves of their heads.  So they have no eyes or ears, suggesting that all of the things that define us, that make us perceptible, are meaningless in hell.  So Hell is this world, only filled with pain and suffering and minus any sign of hope or peace.

The battle of good and evil are seen in other characters as well.  Midnight (Djimon Honsou) is a man who claims to maintain perfect neutrality, serving the balance between Heaven and Hell.  But even he, at some point, joins the battle on Constantine’s side when it becomes obvious that his constancy to neutrality is aiding the cause of Hell.  Midnight prays for Constantine after Constantine walks away and cannot hear him, a demonstration that this is not simply a show. The point of Midnight’s character is to show us that perfect neutrality is not goodness.  It’s not noble.  It’s not a worthy cause in and of itself.  It’s just neutrality. 

Chas Kramer (Shia Lebouf), who assists Constantine as a kind of apprentice, is actually a great believer.  When the chips are down, he turns to prayer, lifting Constantine up and giving him the strength to continue.  He follows Constantine around and tries to learn everything from him, but his eagerness is about the fight, not about the man.  He wants to mess up Hell’s plan, for goodness’ sake.

And then there is Gabriel (Tilda Swinton).  Gabriel is one of God’s greatest fighters and believers.  But in Constantine, Gabriel has gone rogue, in God’s name, to carry out a plan unsanctioned by God.  Gabriel ends up on the losing end of a very unworthy battle as a result.

So what is the message of Constantine?  That heaven is turning yourself over to God, and hell is separating yourself from Him, however you choose to do that.


The plot of the movie is hopelessly flawed.  (The plot hangs on the “Spear of Destiny,” which the movie states is what really ended Jesus’ life.  It’s not mentioned in any of the gospels except for John, and even in John, He is most decidedly already dead by the time the Spear enters into it.)  I enjoyed the acting very much.   Keanu Reeves does try so very hard to be a good actor.

What really impresses me enough to overlook the occasional overacting and the hopeless flaws of the plot is the devotion to impressive imagery present in the movie.  Crosses are everywhere in John’s world, even worked into the pattern on his bedspread, but they never seem to really touch him.  The movie plays with the color of light, making it cold when John reaches for it and warm for Angie. 

But I think one of my favorite images happens very early in the movie.  When Angela leans over her sister Isabelle to identify the body, the perspective is changed so that it looks as though they are face to face.  But gravity is at work on Angela’s body, so the cross she wears around her neck leans toward Isabelle, creating the illusion that the cross is reaching magnetically for Isabelle.  

This movie has a lot of violence, disturbing images, and a little bit of bad language.  Nothing your average 14 year old can't handle.

Crosses in the Window Panes

There is a wonderful plot twist in one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books where he talks about vampires.  A thoughtful vampire father attempts to inoculate his vampire children against the painful problems of things like crosses by presenting them with an alternative way of looking at them. . . crosses are simply two lines that intersect, nothing more.  For a great deal of the story, this works out very well.  The villagers try to use crosses on the vampires and they simply use their father's guidance to change them into two intersecting lines. 

But then, due to plot devices which I will not spoil for you here, a switch comes over them, and they suddenly realize that everywhere two lines intersect, a cross is formed.  The danger for them is no longer merely crucifixes and rosaries, but every crossbeam of every building, every window pane.  They are crippled by the ever-present cross. 

This is what I would like to do with my whole world.  Everywhere I look, in every piece of pop culture, no matter how vulgar and crude, comedic, horrific, it makes no difference, there is a strong spiritual message to be found.  I do not think that looking for a spiritual message in everything waters down the message.  Just because the message comes at you from the latest Seth Rogan movie does not make the message any weaker.  Rather, the increased awareness that the message could be found anywhere sends us looking for it.  Like a giant, cosmic Where's Waldo game.  Suddenly all around us are these echoing messages.  There are crosses in every window pane.

So it is my intention to begin reviewing and discussing all of my favorite movies, shows, books and anything else that happens to occur to me, not just to rate the experience, but also to unearth the spiritual message underneath.     Challenge me.  Stump me.  Set out to undo my logic.  There's a catch.  In order to figure out whether a movie or a show or book has an insignificant enough message to be difficult for me, you'll have to be looking for it, too.   Soon it will be you that is surrounded by intersected lines that have suddenly become crosses.