Perhaps the KKK was on to something: When you keep all that hate bottled up inside for too long, sometimes you just have to let it out – like a good cross burning. It’s cathartic.
Or, if you’re a seething Hollywood leftist, sometimes you just have to make a movie about killing billions of people, butchering Christians with axes and blaming it all on the Republicans. That’s cathartic, too.
Now, to set the record straight, I don’t actually condone the KKK or cross burning.
Neither, therefore, can I condone making or even watching the completely hateful and offensive film, “Kingsman: The Secret Service.”
At first glance, the movie comes off as a romping spoof of every James Bond film ever made, albeit with less sex and more comical, gratuitous violence, like people being sliced in half and heads exploding.
Filled with riveting action and likeable actors who understand dry wit – like Michael Caine and Colin Firth and relative newcomer Taron Egerton – contrasted with an over-the-top (although poor) performance from villain Samuel L. Jackson, there’s plenty of creativity and comedy to make “Kingsman” an original, funny, action-packed film.
Unfortunately, there’s also a left-coast bias in the film that’s so heavy, when the violence erupts against southern Christians and climate-change deniers, it’s hard to know whether it’s still all a spoof, or whether it’s just that catharsis of hate I alluded to earlier.
The film presents the premise that man-made climate change is real and politicians have simply had their heads buried in the sand over it so long the Earth is “f-d.” Humanity is a virus destroying its host, and it’s too late for us to save ourselves.
It’s up to the super-secret “Kingsmen,” then, to stop a bad guy who decides the final solution to this problem is to kill billions of these human viruses and start over with a select few.
So what’s the problem? Why bother stopping him? Given the premise already established, that’s sort of the natural conclusion. The movie portrays the villain’s “solution” as logical, doesn’t even really condemn it, and frankly, does a better job of subtly suggesting the idea than revealing what’s wrong with it.
Considering that reducing the human population – or “culling the herd,” as the film puts it – is a proposal actually put forward as legitimate by some climate-change activists (even those in the White House inner circle), joking about it without condemning it rides a bit too close to the line of desensitizing us to the idea.
The movie takes an even more startling turn, however, when the villain unleashes his secret weapon, a device that alters brain waves and can turn any crowd in a murderous mob.
The movie then unleashed this weapon on a church in Kentucky.
Naturally, the church – per the stereotype perpetrated by media leftists – is backward, racist and labeled a “hate group,” the preacher ranting on first about the evils of sodomy and abortion, before turning his attention to the evils of them “Jews, niggers and fag lovers.” The Confederate flag is on proud display.
Once the secret weapon is switched on, however, audiences are treated to all these racist Southern Christians suddenly turning on one another, ripping down crosses to strike each other over the head, bash and stab people. Guns come out (naturally, they’re redneck Southerners, after all), and they start blowing each other away, stabbing and mutilating one another. It’s so gruesome, even the characters in the movie turn away and can’t stomach it. Finally, the pastor kills the organist with an axe to the neck. All this set to music by the classic Southern rock anthem, “Free Bird.”
Funny stuff, no?
Only if you’ve got a reservoir of your own hate toward churches to begin with.
Now, I’ve heard it argued that this “church” was supposed to represent the notorious Westboro Baptist Church. On one hand, however, there’s almost no correlation evident in the film – the church is in a different state, of a different denomination, no mention of protests or signs or anything tying this fictitious church to Westboro – and on the other, even if it does represent that particular church, we’re supposed to delight in them slaughtering one another?
I’m sorry, it’s not funny. It’s sick.
When the villain later explains why the story of Noah justifies all his actions, the mockery of Christianity is complete.
And just when the movie is almost at its merciful end, audiences get an anal sex joke and a bare behind.
Gee, thanks for that.
Someone, I imagine, thought they were clever making this movie. And in some lines, and some scenes, they were. But taking mockery and violence aimed at Christians to this level? Not clever. Not even close.
Content advisory:
- “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” rated R, contains roughly 130 obscenities and profanities, most that begin with the letter F.
- The film is extremely violent, although somewhat cartoonish in doing so. There are plenty of great action scenes, but also others that are just blood baths. Not for the faint of stomach.
- The movie has some lewd gestures and comments, a couple of homosexuality jokes and some bikini-clad minor characters. There’s relatively little sexuality until the very end of the film, when a character promises the protagonist anal sex and then flashes her bare bottom on the screen.
- The film’s religious references are discussed above. There is no over occult content, but the movie’s treatment of Christianity is derogatory, mocking and offensive.
