‘The Convert’ (2024) Review – Filming Violence As A Form Of Poetry

A new Guy Pearce film is a cause for celebration, specifically for hardcore fans like myself who await him to reinvent himself with every role like a phoenix. In The Convert, Pearce returns to his good old roots, with a performance as grounded in its solidity and subtlety as his The Rover, Ravenous, and The Proposition.

As the mysterious, all-knowing Reverend Thomas Munro, Pearce leads a stellar cast of Māori actors. Director Lee Tamahori frames Pearce wonderfully, creating scenes that stay in the mind for long as Pearce revels in his favorite genre: brutal historical dramas. Munro lands in pre-colonial Aotearoa, New Zealand with the outlier of being a man of God when he’s furthest from his carefully constructed narrative. Munro reaches his destination and spares the life of an ariki chief’s daughter. Then he is thrust into a tribal war that opens the gates to floods of hell that he has carefully tucked away, in the dark recesses of his subconscious.

Munro seems like the kind of man emerging from an anti-fairy tale. Forget Pocahontas and The New World, Munro is no John Smith, he’s no white savior and this film doesn’t flirt with colonialism white people are as snobbish and racist as they are in this film, but they are also cornered, worried, instead of embracing Māori culture – they feel like they are under siege. Munro acts not with the naive wisdom of a religious preacher, but the bitterness of a man who has seen so much that nothing fazes him. His being a witness to a Māori tribal war triggers his repressed PTSD. He remembers the horrible things he has done and only finds acceptance within the Māori, especially with the fearless ariki chief Maianui.

The real scene stealer is Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, chief Maianui’s daughter Rangimai. Apart from the fact that she has the most stunning, expressive eyes to ever be on screen, the ferocity and melancholy with which she plays her role mesmerizes and calls for supporting actress award recognition.

Munro plays the fool, far inferior to these realistic tribe leaders Maianui and Akatārewa. His naivete is sometimes painful to watch, as he navigates a world with ideals that do not fit the land. “This is a violent land. Like England,” Akatārewa tells Munro in a bone-chilling scene. As history is perfectly laid out, truth is spoken, how the conquests of the West are no better than tribal wars, aided by the elegance and the air of flair that white people always added to their stories. Their narrative is always God-fearing men hunting and slaughtering barbarians, when in fact, they are far more brutal and vicious than the people they murder for land.

But in a mind-blowing turn of events, Lee does not portray Māori as idiots or peace-loving, pacifist, nature-worshipping nomads. They are fierce warriors, bloodthirsty and ruthless. Munro seems like the dove among fighting vultures, yet, because the Māori culture is finally depicted for what it truly is – nature is neither good nor bad but kind and cruel concurrently – the vultures accept the dove among them.

The Convert is not concerned with giving easy answers to complex questions. It doesn’t glorify war or colonization. It doesn’t villainize or make someone an angel, a king on a paper throne. It is a film about finding one’s place in the vast, cruel world. It finds its footing in its solid storytelling and in-depth handling of its subjects, working with an insider, an offspring of the culture rather than a Westernized outlook that fetishizes and romanticizes the battle rather than showing it for what it truly is: the nature of things.

The Convert is currently playing in select theaters and is available On Demand courtesy of Magnet Releasing.