Right off let me say that I debated giving Mel Gibson's personal psychodrama a single star - it starts as a plodding bore before evolving into an audience-bludgeoning piece of occasionally ludicrous ultraviolence - but I didn't want to scare everyone away from it.

For those interested in seeing the (possibly demented) personal beliefs of a major Hollywood star laid bare, The Passion of the Christ elicits in the viewer the kind of horrible fascination you might feel if someone you know went through a serious nervous breakdown right before your eyes.

Tracing the last 12 hours of Jesus' life, from his betrayal by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane, through his presentation to Pontius Pilate, his condemnation by his fellow Jews and his crucifiction, the film's narrative is as familiar as they come.

Gibson strives for an ultra-realistic feel - costumes are as they probably were, dialogue is taken from the Bible, and the Jewish characters speak their minimal dialogue in Aramaic, the language of the time (the Romans speak Latin). All of which works against any actual involvement in character or action on the audience's part.

Mel picks up the pace when Jesus is arrested, or to be more specific, when Jesus begins to be tortured by his Roman captors. This is where things start to get very strange indeed.

Gibson films the torture scenes, the carrying of the cross to Cavalry and the subsequent crucifiction in such a fetishistic, obsessive, graphic and detail-oriented way that one can't help but have two thoughts: 1) Mel actually identifies completely with Jesus; and 2) Sadomasochism and self-flagellation play a big part in Mel's psyche.

"It is as it was." So said (according to news sources) the Pope. The Vatican quickly issued a statement denying that the Pope had commented in any way. Given that Mel's form of Luddite Catholicism views the current post-Vatican II regime as a group of backsliders and frauds who've turned away from the "true" faith - that would be the one that started the Spanish Inquisition and quietly endorsed the Nazi's extermination of the Jews - one wonders why he would care about a Vatican aprroval.

Nobody knows "how it was," back then anyway, something a hubristic Mel would never admit to. For Gibson it's as real as yesterday's rain. Which makes me want to ask him where exactly it says that, after nailing Jesus to the cross, the Roman guards forced the crucifix into an upright position only to push it over again. Jesus, the cross on his back, falls face-first into the rubble - allowing Roman minions to flatten the nails protruding from the back of the cross. It's a sickening moment (among many). Did it happen? Who knows? But it's as if, for Mel and his agenda, Jesus' death needed a little visual and ideological boost into the Hollywood horrible.

The big question surrounding the film is, "Is it anti-Semitic." Well... does having hundreds of Jews (Pharisees and commoners both) practically foaming at the mouth whilst screaming for His death, despite Pilate's entreaties for mercy, mean it's anti-Semitic? The Catholic Church has long since rejected the idea that "the Jews" killed Jesus - uber literalist Mel disagrees.