Mission accomplished

I scratched an old itch tonight.

When I finally watched The Mission, it was the fulfillment of an intention to view that was nearly eight years old.

About now, eight years ago, it was the home stretch before my April 12th wedding. My regular flow of rented discs through the mail had proceeded pretty much unabated to that point, but eventually something had to give.

That something was The Mission.

It had made it to the top of my queue out of a general desire to see it, rather than a specific time-sensitive need to sit down and watch it. And as the date of our wedding approached, it became clear that The Mission was not a part of our current mission. I couldn't imagine the scenario that would allow me to sit down and watch a 125-minute movie about Jesuit priests trying to convert native South Americans to Christianity while fending off the advances of the Portuguese.

So instead of just sitting on it until after the honeymoon, I returned it unwatched, enabling me to secure one of two movies that seemed more honeymoon-friendly: The Brothers Solomon and Death at a Funeral. Light comedies was what I was looking for, but I couldn't have guessed how bad they would also both be.

Since sending The Mission back to Blockbuster (yes, it was those days) without watching it, I've always sort of felt I needed to get back in front of it sooner rather than later. It took nearly the entire Barack Obama administration (which had not yet begun at that point), but I finally converted on that mission.

Was it worth the wait?

Yes and no.

It's a well-made and impressive film, but as it turned out, I could only give it half my attention. See, my Thursday night was also spent finalizing my wife's birthday present, which involved cutting and pasting and coloring. (The present came out pretty well, though.)

So was it the right way to finally watch The Mission? Probably not. But I did give it four stars on Letterboxd. So there's that.

But when Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, uttered the now-famous phrase that serves as the subject for this post, he too was premature in declaring an achieved outcome.

Oh well. I guess someday I can make up for the o-Mission.