Christian Jihad
Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder’s review of Angels and Demons points out that in the book, the mad clergyman’s assassin was a rabid Muslim. In the movie, apparently he’s a lapsed Catholic instead, killing for money instead of for Allah. Wouldn’t want to offend any Muslims now, would we?
Mark Hadley comments:
Yes, strangely the ‘assassin’ is one area where the film goes harder at Christianity than the book does.
In the book the Hassassin, as he is called, is clearly a sexual deviant who enjoys inflicting pain. In the film he’s been transformed into a compassionate killer. Sure, he murders cardinals, but that’s just because it’s his job. He actually lets Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra go free because they’re not on his hit list, and he throws them a warning to be careful of those men of God, implying they are the unscrupulous ones. This is a fact carried home by his employers blowing him up moments later.
Yes, I feel that it was pretty clear that the producers thought Islam should be off limits, but why go the extra mile? Why not just make the assassin a bad man, instead of setting him up as an additional witness to the church’s perfidy?
Dan Brown and Ron Howard would be brave men if there was such a thing as Christian jihad. But there isn’t and they are not. So, this alteration reveals both their cowardice and the fountain of their work: not hatred of false religion, but hatred of Christ Himself. They are the ones with the jihad.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:14 am
Kevin Goddard rightly pointed out to me that Ron Howard as a director has a much better sense of plot than Dan Brown in his silly book, so this change is one element that puts the movie streets ahead of the novel. However, I think my point still stands.