Luther

The film follows Martin Luther from entering the monastery in 1505 to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. A theological argument sits at the centre, but the real engine is a technology: what Luther writes travels across Germany within weeks thanks to the printing press, and the church meets a spread it cannot control for the first time. Joseph Fiennes takes the lead, with Bruno Ganz, Alfred Molina and Peter Ustinov in support. Molina, as Tetzel selling indulgences, gets the liveliest scenes in the picture. There is something worth knowing behind the production. This American and German co-production was funded in part by Thrivent Financial, a financial services company serving Lutherans, and it barely recovered its thirty one million dollar budget in cinemas. That funding also explains the tone. Luther is scarcely criticised here, and his stance during the peasant revolts and the harshness of his later writing are passed over quickly. Who it is for: viewers wanting an entry point to the Reformation. Who it is not for: anyone expecting an even handed portrait.