The Spear Misses Its Target

Movie Review:
End of the Spear

PG-13 / 1 hr., 48 min / 2006

In the mid-1950's, missionary pilot Nate Saint flew Jim Elliot and three missionary companions into the jungles of Ecuador in an attempt to make contact with the Auca tribe. Their goal was to share the Bible’s message of salvation, the Gospel, to the natives.

On January 8, 1956, the five men were mercilessly slaughtered by a group of Auca tribesmen.

Whether readers of this review believe in Christianity or not is beside the point. Saint, Elliot, and the others did firmly believe that all people everywhere are destined to Hell unless they place their trust in Jesus Christ. Spreading the Gospel, enabling people to hear of Heaven and the escape from eternal pain and suffering, was of the utmost importance to them. They were willing to give their lives in the process if God so decreed.

But you sure can’t tell that by watching End of the Spear.

The film is told from the point of view of Nate’s son Steve, who was not yet a teen when his father was killed. We begin with a shot of an adult Steve (Chad Allen) paddling along a river with a Waodani tribesman named Mincayani (Louie Leonardo). Where they are going is not yet revealed, but Steve’s narration leads us into the story of how Mincayani ended up sitting in a boat with the son of the man he killed.

In the earlier part of the century, Mincayani was a prominent member of a dwindling tribe. Certainly some tribal rituals were part of the problem: When a parent died, for instance, his living children were to be buried with him – which really puts a damper on any hopes of a flourishing family tree. In addition, in-fighting among the various Ecuadorian tribes was leading to the extinction of all of them. But one enemy they all had in common was the “foreigners” – which basically constituted any white man.

There is a sub-plot involving what I think was Mincayani’s sister ending up being adopted by some white missionaries years before, but when the missionaries try to inform the Waodani that she is still alive and well, Mincayani is skeptical. Indeed, his skepticism and distrust eventually boil over into the rage that leads to the five deaths.

While these deaths bring grief to the hearts of the wives the missionaries left behind, these women also believe as their husbands did, and head out to minister to the Waodani tribe. Under the constantly distrustful eye of Mincayani, Elisabeth Elliot and the other women encourage the tribe to lay off killing other tribes, to foster honorable character. The women also prove very helpful when polio enters the tribe, administering medicine and therapy to heal the natives.

This loving treatment in light of his murderous behavior tortures Mincayani’s heart until, years later, he finds himself paddling up the river with Steve to the place where Nate and the missionaries were killed. There, both Mincayani and Steve must finally come to grips with the tragedy.

It has been the history of Christian films that, because they are not as hugely marketable as generic Hollywood entertainment, they operate under much lower budgets, and therefore end up with low production values all around, from acting to costumes to music to editing. In its favor, End of the Spear plays very much like a moderately well-budgeted film.

For what it is, the screenplay by Bart Gavigan, Jim Hanon, and Bill Ewing is respectable fare, with Mincayani’s story vividly laid out and woven together with Steve’s. Some of the lesser details puzzle me, like why the tribe is called the Waodani here when they are known as the Aucas in articles about Jim Elliot. And like many biopics, events are often compressed: The men made contact with the tribe on more occasions than are chronicled here, for example. But the overall structure is reliable, and the script is not inept.

Directed by Hanon, the production is entirely watchable, far removed from some of the embarrassments of Christian cinema’s earlier years. With some beautiful imagery by Robert A. Driskell, Jr., and production design by Clarence L. Major, we are taken into the steamy, dirty world of the Waodani, and the makeshift existence of the missionaries. It’s not perfect – the opening attack of one tribe upon another felt a little staged, for example. But clearly money was involved with this one.

Thanks to a beard and glasses, Chad Allen (NYPD Blue) works as both father and son without being a casting distraction, though far more charming is young Chase Ellison (The Young and the Restless) who plays Steve as a youth. But even with two roles, Allen actually doesn’t have a lot of acting to do. He flies the plane, lands with the men, and gets the dramatic death scene even though most anyone who knows this story thinks of Jim Elliot long before thinking of Nate Saint.

The film’s running time really belongs to Louie Leonardo (All My Children) as Mincayani. Leonardo must deal with all of the painful emotions running through Mincayani as he struggles with having his tribe’s tradition imposed upon by foreigners while at the same time wrestling with the perils those very traditions present. Leonardo gives no hint of his soap opera background, where melodrama reigns. He feels real in this performance.

Jack Guzman (Days of Our Lives) plays a tribesman named Kimo, who is the first to accept the ways of the missionary wives. Deciding their lessons of peace to be the better way, he helps with building new shelters, and reaches a point where he breaks his spears as a sign that he will no longer participate in killing other tribes. Guzman and Leonardo successfully generate the necessary tension between the two competing ideologies – they made me temporarily doubt what I knew was the historical outcome.

But under all of the quality production values lies a problem: If ever I have seen a biopic that totally misses the point of its subject matter, End of the Spear is the one.

Yes, I’m a Christian who very much admires Jim Elliot’s total devotion to God. But I’m not writing the following to turn any readers into Christians. I’m simply trying to describe the movie’s huge failure. I shall aim for succinctness.

It is the Bible’s claim that all souls throughout history are sinful from birth and sentenced by a perfectly holy God to pay for their sins by enduring never-ending unbearable suffering in Hell. Far from leaving it at that depressing conclusion, however, the Bible claims that God himself has paid that penalty by having his Son Jesus Christ die in mankind’s place, and that anyone who simply acknowledges this and places his trust in Christ will be rescued from the sentence of Hell and be welcomed into eternal bliss in God’s presence in the afterlife.

Saint and the missionaries believed all of this, and believed that giving the Waodani (or Aucas) the opportunity to hear that message and thus be saved from Hell was more important than any other goal in life. Still with me?

So if a person gave his life trying to rescue souls from Hell, shouldn’t a movie about that person include his central mission? End of the Spear turns Saint and Elliot, and later their wives, into people whose primary goal was to bring modern civility to the tribe; a shallow thesis compared to what they really went to Ecuador for. If you’re not familiar with Christian beliefs and the significance of my argument doesn’t strike you, let me put it this way: It would be akin to making a film about Martin Luther King, Jr., and leaving out that minor detail about his stand for racial equality.

The Bible’s message is not about living “the good life” here on earth. It is about the opportunity to live an unspeakably joyous life after this one. But Saint’s and Elliot’s heart-felt belief that God wants to save people from Hell is reduced to a message that God wants everyone to get along, get dressed, eat right, and stay healthy.

No wonder a homosexual activist and two soap opera hunks were willing to play leading roles in a “Christian” film: Had this movie truly portrayed what Nate Saint and the others stood for, I doubt Allen in particular would have touched the project. And no wonder so many non-Christians were angry: The film turns Saint and Elliot into nothing more than meddlers who had the presumption to assume that Western civilization needed to be spread to this backwater tribe.

I repeat, believing the veracity of the Bible’s message or not is up to you. My point is that End of the Spear thoroughly trivializes what happened in Ecuador, both in January of 1956 and years later when the next generation of missionaries returned, by ignoring Saint’s true motivation for going there. I give it points for production values, but cannot in good conscience call it a good movie.

My Score: 6