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The Mission Movie Review

The Mission is a 2023 documentary film directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss. It’s an admirably impartial take on a very difficult subject matter.

American missionary John Chau is killed as he attempts to make contact with an Indigenous group off the coast of India, one of the last communities on Earth still living in isolation. This movie has a very interesting subject matter as it deals with the effects of radical religious communities, colonialism and human arrogance. John Chau had a mind that was warped by the influence of these religious institutions and media, but the movie cleverly showcases that comics and other influences as well as his own personality had an impact on his untimely demise too.

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And that is the biggest strength of this documentary – its unbiased approach at depicting this man and his foolish quest to “teach” these primitive tribesmen about Christianity. Quality documentaries are those that don’t put their own agenda on the subject at hand, but depict the issue from all sides, which is exactly what Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss did here as they explored what led Chau to embark on a quest like this.

It’s a very insightful film that takes shots at everything and everybody that helped Chau become so hell-bent on this dangerous, impossible task. All of the interviews in this movie are genuinely revelatory as we get to peal all the layers of his personality and his life history. As a result, you get to really know the man despite not ever hearing from him in the movie, which is a testament to excellent storytelling abilities from these two filmmakers.

The ending, however, was a big letdown. By making a statement that religion and its influence on people are entirely bad, the movie fell into that trap of blaming one side that it avoided up until that point. It was a frustrating, overly simplistic and disappointing way to end what was otherwise a stellar doc.

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The film is also overlong and not as engaging throughout, but it was so well edited and directed across the board with the highlights being those animated segments that recreated the important moments from Chau’s life. This was a clever way to deal with this part of the story and it really worked. The movie showcases the dangers of colonialist thinking and how it pervades to this day in Western societies, but it also humanizes Chau, which was an interesting choice that worked. The depictions of the Sentinelese tribe was also interesting, though a bit too favoritism was shown for their side.