Heretic started with some promise, a group of young conservative but curious missionaries setting the stage for an intriguing philosophical religious debate.
Unfortunately, it devolved into a muddled mess after the 25-30 minute mark, where the arguments presented stopped making much sense, opinions became grandiose hypotheticals and the dialogue turned into endless monologuing. Then we begin a game 20 questions sautéed in “Guess Who” with a side of religiously philosophical “Deal or no Deal”
While I agreed with the core idea of the protagonist’s philosophy, the way it was presented felt unnecessarily extreme and heavy-handed (obviously). The movie seemed to have a lot to say about atheism and agnosticism, but it failed to provide the two missionaries with solid counterarguments to challenge the protagonist effectively. With 3 points one sister made being appearance, unaccounted for data, and the dissolution of polygomy. All which easily support the protagonist theory, control.
When counterpoints were made, they lacked the structure and impact of his arguments, which, while understandable given the stressful situation, made the dynamic feel completely one-sided. For a film that presented itself with its development to be an “open” discussion about faith and belief, it clearly leaned toward favoring the protagonist’s viewpoint and painted him as the 4chan high rated user of anti-religious indoctrination. By the end, even the supposed counterarguments only served to reiterate his philosophy, rendering every conversation and conflict irrelevant.
This lack of meaningful progression made the entire movie feel pointless, flat and a waste of time.