"A Man Who Became Pope" - Great Television!

Folks, every now and then something comes out from TV that's a pleasant surprise.This time is a movie recently broadcast on the Hallmark channel, entitled A Man Who Became Pope: The Heroic True Story of John Paul II. I recorded it and watched it again to catch some details. Here's my review:

The movie is well done, true to life in terms of sets and costumes. This is no amateur production. The principal actors themselves are Polish: Piotr Adamczyk played Karol Wojtyla and Malgorzata Bela played leading lady, a platonic love never consumated.

Adamczyk plays a convincing Wojtyla, reacting with profound emotions and absorption to every evil he sees. This is consontant with Wojtyla's phenomenological leanings. He was able to capture the late Pope's penetrating gaze and ample smile.

Main bad guys: Matt Craven, who played Hans Frank, Poland's Nazi governor and Hristo Shopov, whose name has been grievously omitted from the Cast Biographies and the Media Kit available from the distributor's website. We all know Shopov: he played Pontius Pilate in the Passion of the Christ. The guy has a nack to play evil dudes. In this movie, he played a Polish Communist apparatchik who tries to capture Wojtyla in a fumble that would justify his arrest, but can't.

Supporting cast: Raoul Bova played Father Thomasz Zaleski, pastor of Wawel Cathedral in Cracow and a mentor of young Karol. Zaleski lost his life at the whim of Governor Hans Frank. Ennio Fantasthichini played Nowak, a mine worker Wojtyla befriended while working at the Solway quarry who became a lifelong friend and mentor of sorts. There are more, but these are the ones I have the most information for the moment. I want to say that no secondary character was wasted in this movie; all of them contributed actively to the setting, to the environment, and to the pathos of the movie.

The script: In my opinion, perhaps the one thing that could have been improved. Sometimes the character appear to be delivering one-liners that sort of "cruise" past the other. In his more pedagogic moments, Wojtyla seems to be delivering straight quotes from the Pope's own works: Love and Responsibility and the Acting Person. Adamski's delivery of these lines is magisterial and saves the day. He was able to integrate seamlessly them into a normal dialogue.

If the late Pope was like this, no wonder he is so beloved!

Anyway...Hallmark is having encore presentations this coming Saturday August 27 at 7pm. Don't miss it. I give it 4 jalapeños out of 5.

- Get more information and excellent high resolution pictures here.