Purim: The Movie
Coming Summer of 2005
 
Having been rankled by the publicity surrounding his recent movie "The Passion," Academy Award winning actor and director Mel Gibson is now seeking to refute the claims that he has something against Jews. To that end, Gibson is beginning work on his next project, Purim: The Movie. It is his intention that this movie will not only quell Jewish concerns about his antisemitic tendencies, but it will also be an extraordinary venue for such an extraordinary story. In a recent interview with the Russian newspaper, Bestov Times, Gibson said, "I've done my film about the New Testament, and now it's time to turn my sights on the old one.  You know, ever since I was a child, I loved to put on costumes and pretend I was saving people from an evil plot. I came to find the story of Purim was the best screenplay ever written for a Hollywood action film." In a follow-up interview by the Lithuanian newspaper, Worstov Times, Gibson also expressed his interest for the Purim story's message when he said, "I think the clear message of Purim is that Haman was a great man persecuted by a Jewish minority. Poor Haman, all he wanted to do was keep control, and the Jews kept badgering him and badgering him until he ended up swinging from the gallows." Gibson said he was going to make this movie "sticking to the facts of the story" by portraying Haman as a loveable oaf who was just misunderstood.  Even though Gibson intends to keep the story "true to the text of Esther," early transcript releases show some discrepancies.
  
The opening scene shows King Ahasuerus sitting on a couch with his beloved Vashti, when a group of marauding Jews, led by actor Joe Pesci, infiltrate the palace, take Vashti away, and replace her with Esther, while telling the King, "This is your new queen, she will tell you what to do, any wrong move on your part, and you will be killed! Do you understand me, Ah-choo-wear-us?"  Later in the movie, we find Queen Esther plotting to kill Haman. She conspires with the leader of the Persian Jewish Mafia, Mordechai ben Punch-ya, to eliminate all people who stand in the way of total Jewish domination over Persia. Haman is portrayed as a goofy and dim-witted counselor to the king and so he is taken by surprise to find that the Jews are conspiring to kill him. Mel Gibson places a ten minute montage in the middle of the movie where Haman is seen playing with little children, skipping along a hop-scotch game, and helping to fix a wheel for a carriage full of orphans. As Haman hangs from the gallows at the end, the Jewish crowd below is cheering and Gibson pans to a little boy in the back of the crowd with a tear streaming down his cheek.
  
The Director of the Jewish Enforcement League of Lower Ohio, Dr. Noah Lott, was outraged when he read the script. "I've seen bad writing before – just look at the show ‘Small Wonder' – it was horrible – but nothing compares to this. This is pure misinterpretation, misreading, misleading, and it's ridiculous. It bears no resemblance to the story of Esther as Jews read it each Purim. This film will be a travesty for Jews! This will be the worst thing that has happened to the Jews since the last Gibson film came out!" Gibson claims that he kept a close eye to the actual text of Esther and that his rendering of the text was faithful. Gibson explained, "This movie is faithful to a copy of the Book of Esther which my father gave me when I was a child. He had scribbled out certain parts of the text and re-written them so that it was easier for me to read."
  
Not all in the Jewish community are meeting the film's release with apprehension. The Hollywood Theater Corporation and Loews Theater Corporation chains have already contracted with Hadassah's Chicago chapter to be the sole provider of hamentaschen for the theater snack-bars. However, Gibson may not allow the sale of the three cornered, fruit-filled hamantaschen at the snack-bars unless they are renamed "Yummy Trinity Pockets." There are already rumors that Gibson has a 2006 release in the works. It will be a faithful adaptation of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."