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| A scene from The Redemption of General Butt Naked. |
Soldiering onward Christian
By John Esther
Those expecting The Redemption of General Butt Naked to be the latest film by Judd Apatow are in for a rude awakening upon first glance of Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion’s documentary about a man trying to save his neck, er soul.
From 1989-2003 a brutal civil war raged on in the Western African nation of Liberia. A conflict claiming an estimated 250,000 lives, few were more feared than General Butt Naked, a man who went into battles, villages and homes with little more on than guns and a cutlass where upon he stole, raped and killed men, women and children. The cutlass was his weapon of choice because it caused more pain than a gun.
Claiming to have seen the light, General Butt Naked disappeared in 1996 and returned from exile 10 years later as Joshua Milton Blahyi, an evangelist spreading the word of Jesus and begging/insisting on forgiveness from the those he had wronged – both far and near.
Preaching the word of Jesus to any African listening, Butt/Blahyi’s salvation is a hard pill to swallow (personally, I think he is a jerk), but most of the people in the documentary are more often than not able to forgive -- perhaps because of his or her own guilt.
Nothing funny or fun here, The Redemption of General Butt Naked takes a cold, bare look at what it means to forgive and never forget under harsh circumstances.
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