MOVIE REVIEW

By Robert Abele, Special to The Times

Scored to a thematic blend of tense jungle drums and choral voices, the slickly produced Christian docudrama "End of the Spear" recounts with spiritual breathlessness the circumstances surrounding the real-life killings of five missionaries at the hands of a violent indigenous Amazon tribe in Ecuador in 1956.

The story doesn't lack for exoticism or scope, but this version has no room for moral thorniness about issues like cultural interference: The Waodani's relentless spear-hurling warfare — depicted with terrifying brio — is a visceral evil, while salvation literally comes from above as the bright yellow Piper plane materializes and bewildered tribespeople crane their necks upward.

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Director Jim Hanon films the missionaries' shocking deaths with all the martyr-steeped intensity he can muster. But as their widows boldly and beatifically carry the torch of evangelizing (and westernizing) the Waodani — to avoid in-your-face Christianity, the writers substitute talk of God and the Bible with lines like "Waengongi marked his trail with carvings" — what creeps in is the dramatic simple-mindedness attendant with a purity-of-purpose mind-set.

Time is bided until the inevitable images of born-again warriors breaking their weapons in two and, years later, a fatherless son (Chad Allen) forgiving his dad's once-savage/now-pacifist killer (Louie Leonardo). Moviegoers who prefer the sterner "eye for an eye" biblical ethos in their adventure sagas might be disappointed.

'End of the Spear'

MPAA rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence

An Every Tribe Entertainment release. Director Jim Hanon. Producers Bill Ewing, Mart Green, Tom Newman, Bart Gavigan. Screenplay Bart Gavigan, Jim Hanon, Bill Ewing.