The Bad Guy Changes Hats

It was almost like a conspiracy. All day Sunday before the world premiere of Born Again the television treated us to previews of Disney’s The Shaggy D.A. The film showed Dean Jones climbing out of a dog house—not necessarily the best preparation for seeing Jones as Nixon’s former hatchet man, Charles Colson.

There is no reason, of course, why an actor cannot successfully move from light comedy parts to serious film work. Dean Jones is an accomplished performer and it may be that he will yet make that transition.

Please understand: Jones commits no disaster. There are no embarrassing moments of obvious incompetence. He knows how to move comfortably in front of a camera and how to deliver his lines naturally. Nevertheless, I confess that Jones failed to make me care about Charles Colson. I did care about Colson when I read the book, yet I was unable to identify with the Jones portrayal of him. I didn’t feel either the anxiety of his spiritual distress or the fear of his physical intimidation in prison.

(As you read this, please remember that I’m the unrepentant reviewer who was so embarrassed by Michael Moriarty’s flat performance in “Holocaust” that I mercifully refrained from mentioning it. He received an Emmy for it.)

However, Director Irving Rapper brings forth fine performances from a number of the cast members. Jay Robinson, an old pro in films, is superb as Colson’s Jewish law partner, David Shapiro. He has some of the best lines in the film and is thoroughly believable as a skeptical Washington lawyer. Robinson is convincingly confused but compassionate about Colson’s Christian conversion. Colson’s former political enemy and present Christian brother, Harold Hughes, plays himself effectively. Hughes, a salty, rumpled, hulk of a man, dominates the screen whenever he appears. No doubt he had a great deal of practical acting experience in that thespian hothouse known as the United States Senate.

Another commanding presence in the film is that of Raymond St. Jacques as Jimmy Newsome, the powerful black prisoner who befriends Colson in prison. He shines as the “policeman” peacemaker within the prisoner community. His being paroled against probability but after prayer with other Christian prisoners is one of the genuinely touching moments of the film.

Two important characterizations in the film are poorly handled. Dana Andrews as Tom Phillips, chairman of the board of Raytheon, seems to confuse spiritual peace with ennui. As he witnesses to Colson about his faith he seems to project weary resignation rather than peace and joy. And Harry Spillman as Nixon impersonates rather than acts. The impersonation is not without merit, but the part calls for a believable dramatic presentation of a tormented man. Spillman fails us.

There are several special problems that a Christian film like this faces. The first is how to make God-talk real. For reasons that remain mysterious to me, Christian conversation has an ethos of unreality about it when it comes from the soundtrack of a technicolor movie. Even when the dialogue is unassailably accurate, it seems somehow unreal.

In Born Again it might have helped if the non-God-talk had been more realistic. The transcriptions of the White House tapes have given us all a rather clear understanding of the earthy, scatological nature of the oval office conversations. Somehow the force of that doesn’t come across in the film.

A second special problem for Christian conversion movies is how to treat the “old man.” How do we deal with the preconversion person? Christians commonly say things like: “The old John Doe is dead. He died at the cross.” There may be some theological truth to that, but the fact remains that there is continuity between the preconversion and the post-conversion person.

Conversion to Christ changes the theological content and direction of a person’s life but it does not usually change his personality. Before his conversion the Apostle Paul was an aggressive, dynamic, somewhat arrogant protector of the Jewish tradition. After his conversion he became an aggressive, dynamic, somewhat arrogant disseminater of the Christian faith.

It is a special problem for Christian dramatists to show the change brought about by conversion while preserving the personality. The problems of language or personality are not successfully solved in Born Again.

The whole Watergate episode was and remains for me a hopeless mass of confusion. I admit I have a problem with dates and chronology. I share the problem of a Methodist minister I know who was attempting to calculate how long he had been married. He turned to his wife and said, “We were married in ’53 and our daughter was born in ’54. Or was it the other way around?”

Born Again provided no help to me in sorting out that confusing period. In fact, the cinema techniques of flash-back and crosscutting from one scene to another increased rather than decreased the confusion.

It’s difficult to know how to assess a film like this. If we take executive producer Robert Munger at his word that “this is a commercial film made for its dramatic and entertainment impact upon the audience” the film rates no more than a bare “C.” If we place it in the genre of Christian conversion movies, it would rate an “A.”

John V. Lawing, Jr., is assistant professor of journalism at CBN University, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.