This film centers on John Book (Harrison Ford), a Philadelphia policeman. Book is on the case of a murder that was witnessed by only one person: a young Amish boy named Samuel (Lukas Haas) who was traveling by train with his mother (Kelly McGillis) to …show more content…
Lukas Hass has to be one of the cutest and most endearing children ever captured onscreen, but he is also convincing as an Amish child. Jan Rubes is superb as Eli Lapp, Rachel’s father. If I hadn’t read otherwise, I would have thought he was an actual Amish person because he is so authentic in the role. Alexander Godunov is also quite interesting as Daniel Hochleitner, Rachel’s Amish suitor. He plays his mixed, but mostly negative, view of the interloping Book quite well. Finally, Josef Sommer is a very good movie villain as Schaeffer. He conveys the menace of his character well, but he’s also credible in moments of conscience and doubt, such as when he gets off the phone with Book near the end of the …show more content…
Wallace, William Kelly and Pamela Wallace is close. Specifically, I loved how these screenwriters and Weir gave a balanced portrayal of the culture clash in this movie. They showed positives and negatives of Amish and modern life. Viewers understand Book’s skepticism of the Amish way of life, but then cannot help but be entranced by it during the lyrical barn raising scene, for example. One of the most effective ways the screenwriters and Weir accomplish this unbiased depiction is by having characters from each life question their own way of living. Rachel seems dissatisfied with her Amish life, while Book seems enraptured with certain elements of Amish living that don’t work in his world. In short, this impartial representation adds to the interest of the film and lends intellectual weight to