At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991)

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I don't really have a problem if a reviewer, that is, a Siskle or Ebert type wants to give this a bad rating. That's what they are paid for - to find fault in movies.But everyone I know loved this film, well, maybe loved isn't the best word. It was at times painful, but it was very beautiful and very vivid and one of my favorite films.I was surprised when I looked for this on Netflix and it wasn't available. With all the junk on DVD, this is a beautifly filled, intense movie with a real story. I don't know why it doesn't have more recognition.

This film is a drama about a missionary who takes his wife and son into the jungles of South America. Big mistake. He meets his boss, a materialistic user of people, and his high maintenance young wife, who looks like she somehow found a health club in the jungle. The Christian missionary has his hands full, and tries hard to spread the word of Jesus to the natives. He makes another mistake when he puts a seed into the mind of a mercenary Native American pilot, who decides to join the natives, where his knowledge of the world makes him one of their most respected leaders. The dramas that unfold turn the missionary into a modern day Job, to say the least, while no one else seems to be affected. While it is true, that such people suffer, the director bends over backwards to make his points, and by the end, you just start shrugging and wondering if he's going to beat you over the head with his ideal world of horror. With a little more subtlety, he might have done so. His overkill is lost when weighed against efforts towards realism. "End of the Spear," a true story, gives a superior and realistic look at such a life style. This movie is certainly biased, and looks to be made out of complete ignorance.

I was disappointed in this movie because it misrepresents evangelical missionaries. In the bar-scene Tom Berenger taunts the "visiting" new missionary who responds that he is working for his salvation every day. No evangelical would say that. Protestants abhor the idea of a "works-salvation" and blame Roman Catholics with that concept. With his linguistic training, he probably had a minimum of three years of undergraduate training in a religious institution plus one or two years linguistic training. His theology would not have caused him to answer as he did. Admittedly he might not have excelled in apologetics because a lot of evangelicals had an isolation approach where they were not taught how to respond to ridicule or opposing views.His wife "Hazel" does not seem to favor the idea of going to the mission field and has difficulty adjusting. Mission directors don't send couples to the field where one is well trained and the other is not. "Hazel" would have had to have at least undergraduate training in a Bible college.Furthermore, they would have had a few months orientation at the field headquarters so that they would know what to expect.Their child would not have stayed with them. He would have been sent to a "boarding school" (probably Faith Academy in Quito Ecuador).While making "rice Christians" was common in Africa and Asia, it was not practiced in South America -- esp. Brazil. Even the "mother hubbard" actions of putting clothing on the naked native women was not practiced in South America. It is true that it was done in Africa and South-Sea islands.Daryl Hannah's ambivalent faith (i.e., switching from Protestant to Catholic) is not believable. The Catholics taught a synchronism and were far more aggressive than the evangelical protestants. Her nude scene was also contrary to her training. She would have gone swimming with a swim suit. She knew there were natives in the area.I doubt if the Niaruna tribe would have accepted someone who parachuted into their village. When missionaries first flew into the West coast of South America, they were met by the Auca Indians who slaughtered the missionaries because they thought they were devils from the skies. I rather imagine this new tribe would have done the same especially since they fired arrows at the airplane upon its first "failed" bombing attempt. These tribes did not readily accept someone from another tribe (unless they intend to deceive them). So Berenger (posing as a "fellow Indian" -- Cheyenne) would not have been accepted.Berenger infects the Niaruna tribe with the flu that kills them? I doubt it. Why not choose smallpox, dysentery, cholera, typhoid, etc.?Missionaries were not trying to civilize these Brazilian tribes as a previous poster suggested. They were trying to convert them and translate the Bible into their native language.It is patently obvious that the script was written by a Roman Catholic rather than a Protestant. I doubt if Evangelical missionaries were even consulted in the research for the script.The story line is interesting, but it fails in the facts.

I rented this film and played it for a group of friends.Must have been shortly after the tape was released.All were weak from laughing hysterically thru the entire film.It was a riot! The acting was horrible.I couldn't believe the lame dialog.The scenes just kept getting more and more absurd.The scene with Darryl Hannah and Tom Berrenger when he happens upon her naked while bathing is one of the funniest and stupidist scenes ever committed to film. Or the scene where Kathy Bates finally looses it.None of it makes a lick of sense.Huge plot holes.I do own a copy though.It's sooooo bad it's good.I was embarrassed for the entire production.Major stinkage.But see it when your feeling down.