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The 10 Best Conservative Movies of 2005

By Don Feder
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 29, 2005

It wasnt a particularly good year for conservative cinema. It rarely is. Yet alongside the cavalcade of ideology, mediocrity and stupidity that is Hollywood today, a few gems shone forth dazzlingly.

What is a conservative film?

Lets start with what it isnt. Its not about men with bulging biceps and even bigger guns. Its not cartoonish action heroes. It isnt revenge tales masquerading as heroism.


Conservative cinema does more than entertain; movies that do no more are visual candy. It instructs and inspires.

Conservative films celebrate virtue. They tell timeless tales of individuals overcoming all manner of adversity to achieve true greatness. Theyre about honesty, loyalty, courage and patriotism. Theyre concerned with conservatisms cardinal values faith, family and freedom.


If I were to list the best conservative movies of the last decade, they would include: Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King (2003) Open Range (2003), LA Confidential (1997), Mel Gibsons The Patriot (2000), and Spiderman, I and II (2002 and 2004). But also some quieter films, like last years In Good Company and The Family Man (2000) would make my list.


Here, then, are my choices for The 10 Best Conservative Films of 2005.

1. Cinderella Man The miraculous, 1930s comeback of boxer James J. Braddock became a metaphor for Americas struggle to get to its feet after the pounding it took in the Great Depression.

In the 1920s, Braddock was a heavyweight contender. After a series of setbacks, by the early 30s, he was a has-been, living with his wife and children in a basement apartment and working on the docks (when work could be found).

The threatened loss of his children, combined with an unexpected second chance, put Braddock back in the ring. As the title bout approaches, his trainer neatly summarizes the situation, when he describes Braddock as old, arthritic and with broken ribs that havent healed. Still, his love of family and belief in his profession drive him on. Russell Crowe as the Cinderella Man (as Damon Runyon dubbed him) and Renee Zellweger as his worried but steadfast wife are more than appealing.

Theres a hero to cheer, a villain to pelt with debris and vintage sets. As Braddocks manager, Paul Giamatti delivers an Oscar-quality performance.

The boxing sequences are the most realistic ever put on film. Director Ron Howard delivers a knockout with Cinderella Man.

2. King Kong King Kong is the blockbuster movie of the 2005 holiday season. How often is a remake better than the original? Peter Jacksons King Kong beats both the 1933 original and the eminently forgettable 1976 remake.

Superficially, its a fine action film. On a deeper level, its characters exemplify feminine virtue, masculine heroism and romantic love. The movie describes a hopeless romance and makes us care for its computer-generated title character. With a great cast (especially Naomi Watts as aspiring actress Ann Darrow Fay Wrays role in the original), Jacksons King Kong satisfies in every way.

3. The Island Reviewers despised it. Audiences treated it as just another sci-fi flick. But The Island is a forceful and compelling pro-life statement, a fact which didnt escape the notice of critics. (The reviewer for the Hollywood Reporter fretted, These filmmakers have, perhaps unwittingly, delivered a film certain to give succor to the religious right.)

The plot: Led to believe theyre survivors of a world-wide contamination, human clones are raised in an underground complex. The clones are walking insurance policies for their wealthy sponsors organs ready to be harvested when needed.

Those who operate the facility view the clones as non-human, even referring to them as the product. (Here is a chilling reminder of the way society can dehumanize victims -- witness products of conception and individuals in a persistent vegetative state, i.e., vegetables.)

Two clones (Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson) learn the truth and escape. But the story takes a backseat to the broader bio-ethical debate. To see The Island is to gaze into the abyss where science combines with the ethics of convenience to create horrors undreamed of in ages past.

4. Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe This screen adaptation of the C.S. Lewis childrens classic is delightful and instructive. From the moment little Lucy wanders into Narnia through the wardrobe full of fur coats, its pure enchantment.

Along with her sister and two brothers, Lucy is thrust into a monumental struggle of good and evil in a magical realm. Theres Christian symbolism in the noble Aslan, who sacrifices himself to atone for anothers sins hardly surprising, as the tale comes from the pen of the greatest Christian apologist of the 20th century.

The movie, which can be enjoyed on any number of levels, speaks of temptation, sin and redemption. If you dont love it, I can only assume youre one of the secret police in the service of the White Witch.

5. The Great Raid Another based on a true story, its about the largest POW rescue mission in U.S. history. In January, 1945, elements of the U.S. Armys 6th Ranger Battalion, the Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas set out to rescue 500 Americans held in a prison camp outside Manila. (This is played against the backdrop of the murder of 150 Allied POWs in a camp on Palawan Island.)

The operation requires 121 Americans to penetrate 30 miles into enemy territory, where tens of thousands of Japanese troops operate, attack a camp guarded by a force at least equal in strength and extract prisoners who could barely walk.

The story shifts between the rescuers, the POWs (many survivors of the Bataan Death March) and the Filipino underground trying to smuggle medicine into the camp.

Unlike Pearl Harbor, theres no effort to whitewash the Japanese military, who are presented as pure sadists and cold-blooded killers products of a Bushido culture that disdained the weak and helpless.

Theres heroism to spare, especially in the real-life character of the American nurse who remained behind to help the prisoners, a tender love story and a realistic depiction of combat. In the midst of another war for the survival of civilization, it helps to remember the sacrifices of an earlier generation of G.I.s.

And the article goes on ....

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