Maybe I am missing something, but I just can’t get that excited about The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s flamboyantly terrible, excessively violent movie that reduces one of history’s most complicated and influential moments to a snuff video. The movie is simplistic, sophomoric and sadistic. I did not, however, find it dangerously anti-Semitic.

Gibson’s Passion certainly has “passion,” yet all the screaming and moaning left me utterly cold – beyond feeling occasionally disgusted by one of the blood-bursts. Gibson shows the emotion without explaining it. There is so much on-screen hysteria from the start that the viewer is left wondering what everyone is shouting about. Ironically, only Pontius Pilate hovers above the fray. In Gibson’s bizarre worldview, this classical villain emerges as a sensitive soul, a Clintonian politician who feels individuals’ pain while seeking the golden path of least resistance.

As for the Jews, the movie’s cartoonishly bloodthirsty mob has nothing to do with me, my friends or my relatives. Gibson’s rendering of the dialogue in the “authentic” Aramaic makes it sound like they are speaking Klingon. The Pharisees’ get-ups look like rejects from Lost in Space. The Sanhedrin’s soldiers look like refugees from Planet of the Apes. The film’s look and sound thus provide a protective distancing. Gibson’s Jews – who are not so clearly identified as “Jews” – are too foreign and demented to reflect on us. Anyone who chooses to transpose feelings about Gibson’s “Caiphus and company” caricature onto real people 2,000 years later must already have been predisposed to hate Jews.

In the kind of personal outreach sadly lacking but so desperately needed today, my college roommate, who is now a Jesuit priest, sent me a reassuring letter conveying similar thoughts. “Some Christians will tendentiously find justification for anti-Jewish thought in their adherence to some element of the sad legacy of Christian (including Catholic) intolerance and insensitivity,” he wrote.

Having been “truly touched by the concerns” expressed about the movie, my friend hopes “that the true strengths of our traditions will sustain those who remain faithful to them, and stand out as human dignity and divine grace to the world.”

Inspired to try viewing the film through my friend’s eyes, I speculated that if I were Christian, I would find the movie doubly offensive.

For starters, Jesus’ teachings are relegated to flashbacks that have all the sophistication of a Lethal Weapon script. The movie assumes Jesus’ greatness without demonstrating it in any way beyond his capacity to endure torture. There are many soulful looks from Mary, Peter and other disciples, but these gestures do not a great religion make. And Gibson’s glee in splattering Jesus’ blood borders on sacrilege.

Jews worried about The Passion feeding a new round of anti-Semitism should note that the Roman torturers come off the worst in this flick. The two brutes who flail Jesus delight in their task, and end up physically and emotionally spent after indulging their passion for torture. But the sins of these two – like the sins of movie meanies set in all kinds of historical epochs – stand alone, independent of their descendants today, as it should be.

As my mind wandered during this boring epic, I could not help wondering how much of the Jewish community’s wrath had turned the movie from Mel’s forgettable eccentricity into a blockbuster.

Throughout these last four years of Arafat’s War, I have mourned our community’s inability to choose the right battles. On campus, we have spent too much time arguing with Palestinian and leftist fanatics who are impervious to logic or evidence, without noticing that the shouting from both sides alienates moderates. Beyond the campus, rather than forcing mayors, ministers, priests and imams to confront our discomfort amid Islamicist threats, we silently budget extra money for security.

Sometimes, certain offences should be ignored – not out of our grandparent’s “Bontsha the Silent” insecurity, but because we feel secure. There is great power – and greater wisdom – in choosing your battles, in knowing when to fight. Let The Passion get spent, and let’s focus on building constructive mutual understanding with our Christian friends.

That, my Jesuit friend insists, “would be the most eloquent statement and most effective dialogue of all.”