Directed by Lee Tamahori
Munro, a soldier turned lay preacher, comes to New Zealand to minister to the first British colonists, but he is converted by the powerful chief Maianui to serve a different purpose.
Новообращенный, تغییر عقیده, The Convert - Er kämpft für den Frieden, 워리어스: 전쟁의 서막, На краю Земли, The Convert : Aux confins du monde, 皈依者, Dönüşüm, ההמרה, Convertirea, Навернений, Próba wiary, გარდაქმნა, Atsivertėlis, Kẻ Cải Đạo
Canada Toronto International Film Festival 
UK Manchester Film Festival 
Russia18+ «Атмосфера кино», «Arna Media» 
AustraliaMA 15+ Sydney Film Festival 
France Dinard British & Irish Film Festival Australia Birrarangga Film Festival 
USANR 
MexicoB-15 
New ZealandR13 AustraliaMA 15+ 
SingaporeNC16 
Germany16 
Spain16 USA UK UK15 UK15 Australia Canada France Germany Mexico New Zealand Russia Singapore Spain UK USA 
You might be thinking "I don't think the guy who directed Die Another Day has an Apocalypto or The New World in him", and guess what? You'd be right!
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
shocked into disbelief the white saviour trope is still kicking. amazed they neither criticised nor unpacked colonialism and christianity and its effects on Māori. FUMING they dumbed down Māori and Te Reo and made it all about an English pastor ‘saving’ an iwi. I actually laughed that they ended the movie with a happy ending for the iwi IN 1834!
high end, expensive, competent Hollywood film done down under. it's a classic white saviour piece, and I couldn't help thinking "very Spielbergian!" - this could have been a huge success 20 years ago with the right marketing strategy, I'd even say decent Oscar material. how you see it comes down very much to if you're on the "good that Maori culture gets representation" or "this is a terribly condescending, post-colonial cliche park" side.
guy pearce showing off his acting abilities while still looking handsome as ever we love to see it
Guy Pearce ? World class.
Que je suis content. Guy Pearce est un acteur pour lequel j’ai toujours eu une immense sympathie. Discret et si talentueux.
Il a connu un gros passage à vide où Monsieur enchaînait les mauvais projets, des DTV sans saveur. Le voilà de retour au premier plan depuis quelques temps, je le vois apparaître dans des projets ambitieux et à la hauteur de son véritable jeu.
Dans The Convert, sa prestation m’a totalement convaincue !
En 1830, Munro (Guy Pearce) un prédicateur britannique est envoyé par sa Majesté sur un territoire maori (Nouvelle-Zélande), une terre colonisée afin d’y répandre la bonne parole (christianisme).
Rapidement, il va s’apercevoir que des luttes de pouvoir et de croyances ont lieu. …
Curious; interesting; located; long; problematic; scenic; slow; uneven; well-crafted.
i think it’s weird that the focus of this movie is on tribal violence with the main character being a white religious man! i don’t care!!! maybe we should tell a colonisation story from a māori pov and focus on all the horrible things white people did and also maybe the fact that the impact of colonisation is still being felt today?? like helllooooo !!?? also there r some crazy moments like for example when the chief had the māori heads hanging like white people literally did that to us so it feels weird to be showing the chief doing it? i think especially because it is safe to assume that not everyone in the audience is going to have prior knowledge about colonialism?? idk it feels so weird to me like it’s trying to push the savage ideology many racists already hold about māori idk
I recently saw a small part of an interview for Letterboxd in which Guy Pearce said that this was his favorite movie of the ones he starred in (before this one it was The Proposition).
Obviously, as he was promoting this, it was kind of natural for him to say that.
Guy Pearce is an excellent actor, and I even partially agree with him regarding The Proposition, which is a good movie (my favorites of his filmography continue to be LA Confidential and Brimstone), but as far as this one, I think it's way far from his best works.
It's a movie that left me with the feeling that, all things considered, it delivered very little, specially taking in the…
A familiar but relevant story is being told and the same can be said about the themes being explored. Lee Tamahori is back in New Zealand and his hearts surely in the right place but for me this films execution just leaves much to be desired. The Convert surely looks beautiful and the cast do their best but due to some pretty bad writing it was hard to stay emotionally invested and I felt like the film was just to soft and played it to safe especially in the end. It just really lacked that punch that could have taken things to the next level. I was actually very on board for about the first quarter but the film really falls apart and while it's far from terrible I just don't see it as being anything other then average.
I haven't reviewed a film in a good long while, but I saw The Convert last night and I felt compelled to write something about it to help unpack my thoughts.
The big elephant in the room for me was that it unfortunately very much fell into the category of white saviour films. That's not to say it was bad, but it just means that the stories I really want to be centered, that should be centered, aren't. There's a fine balance to it, I suppose and I think the balance would have been fine with only Charlotte or only Munro, but with both of them there, it shifted that balance and the big character developments and emotional tugs came…
Visually beautiful with well executed representation of our clothing, jewellery, art forms and warfare.
My only gripe is that Guy Pearce should’ve been a side character not the main focus
ENGLISH Version below
🇩🇪 Historisch. Bildgewaltig. Authentisch.
In den 1830er Jahren reist ein Prediger (Guy Pearce) der anglikanischen Kirche zu britischen Kolonialisten nach Neuseeland. Sofort wird er in die Konflikte zwischen den einheimischen Maori-Stämmen untereinander und mit den christlichen Siedlern hineingezogen und versucht zu vermitteln…
Die Landschaftsaufnahmen aus der neuseeländischen Natur sind überwältigend und nehmen den Betrachter regelrecht gefangen, auch sonst wurde „The Convert“ wunderbar gefilmt. Die Darstellung der kämpferischen Maori-Kultur wirkt sehr authentisch, auch wenn ich mir eine stärkere Fokussierung darauf gewünscht hätte. Die liegt eher auf dem weißen Prediger, der mir etwas zu reingewaschen vorkommt, die restlichen Kolonialisten werden hingegen als das präsentiert, was sie auch waren: von ihrer Überlegenheit überzeugte und von einer gehörigen Portion Gier angetriebene…
