"The Passion of the Christ," a harrowing condensation of Jesus's final 12 hours, engages in some troubling assumptions, for starters by treating the Bible's four Gospels as literal eyewitness accounts of Jesus's arrest, torture and crucifixion. It traffics in lurid, almost pornographic imagery of blood, brutality and mortified flesh, rivaling Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" in its ghastly, stylized violence. [Mel Gibson] has exhibited a startling lack of concern for historical context, both of the Passion's ritualized reenactment and of its story itself, which over the past several centuries has been used repeatedly to foment violence against Jewish communities. And yet, even within what often looks like a self-indulgent exercise in humiliation, pain and gratuitous gore, there is no denying the moments of genuine and powerful feeling in "The Passion of the Christ" -- some of which, by the way, evoke Jesus's most profound teachings of Jewish principles.

That Jesus and his followers were themselves Jewish is a fact either elided or ignored by "The Passion of the Christ," which begins in the garden of Gethsemane during the Passover celebration. Jesus is shown praying, his encounter with God being observed by an androgynous satanic figure nearby. Overcoming that force, which seems to represent the absence of faith, Jesus proceeds to accept his fate. Judas soon appears with guards, who deliver Jesus to the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem; they in turn give him up to the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, who for his part insists Jesus is the rightful charge of Herod, ruler of Galilee. Ultimately, Jesus is returned to Pilate and, at the behest of the Jewish leaders and their mob, is sentenced first to scourging, then to death by crucifixion.