Fridae

Curfews and surveillance systems loom over Britain and 'fingermen' (informers) roam the streets, 'blackbagging' dissidents of all kinds �" homosexuals, Muslims, vocal literati.

This grim and dystopic vision of totalitarian Britain is where Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman; Closer, The Star Wars Trilogy), about to be raped, is rescued by V (Hugo Weaving; The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings), a caped vigilante in a Guy Fawkes mask who wants to put an end to Christian totalitarian Britain, headed by tyrannical Chancellor Adam Sutler (John Hurt).

Floored by his heroism, Evey, who works at the British Television Network, takes up V's offer to watch a fireworks display, only to see Lady Justice blown to smithereens as Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture plays in the background. She encounters V again when he swings into BTN's offices to broadcast his message to the nation �" he vows to blow parliament up on the 5th of November.

V goes on a killing spree of politicians, clergy, scientists and media moguls. As the British police try to suss out his motivations and piece the connections, details of injustice at Larkhill Resettlement Camp �" from where V had escaped �" begin to surface. V proceeds on with his masterplan, which slowly turns a war weary and epidemic ridden country against its government.

In the space between, Evey, bitten by Stockholm syndrome, becomes both V's prisoner and his paramour. Initially an unwilling hostage, she proceeds to do V's bidding, as she recollects her past and finds similarities between V and her activist parents.

Portman, in her clipped British accent, manages quite a range in her transformation from the beguiling Lolita-with-lollipop, who wants to escape from her captor, to a convert to V's cause.

It is in the film's final leg where Portman emerges, emaciated but invoked, and truly shines as the glazed-eyed zealot, an anguished banshee weaned off all social conditioning and indeed, of fear itself.

Yet one contention is that Evey is merely a vehicle for the realisation of V's prophecies. Evey is passive and receptive of all V's ideas, but therein lies the character's realism. That her name has Biblical allusions is no coincidence �" she is flawed but essentially human. Cowed by an oppressive regime, fettered in fear, she nevertheless has a flint of fighting spirit that refuses to die out, which eventually becomes her salvation.

V, meanwhile, is not so easy to pin down. Freedom fighter, terrorist, national hero, enemy of the state �" he is all of these. He murders his victims in cold blood, with a vengeance that is ruthless, and you question whether one so pre-occupied with payback can have the greater good of all Britain at heart.

But ultimately, he rises from the personal to the political, shredding the underbelly of the fascist government, and waking the lethargic nation from their sleepwalk into subservience.

Weaving's V is a charismatic, intellectual anti-hero, yet thoroughly resolute in his convictions when he remarks, "Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. There is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof." Yet most gripping is the idea that V is inherent in us all, and integral to his ability to identify with his countrymen is his anonymity, elevating him to martyr status.

If the characters are multi-faceted, then Vendetta's intentions are more straightforward. It is politically charged, and makes no attempts to hide it. The show is a thinly veiled indictment of the Bush administration. A BTN screened vaudeville clowning routine, where V is revealed as the Chancellor, for instance, begs the question as to who the real terrorists and tyrants of the world are. As V muses most acerbically, "Artists tell lies to show the truth. Politicians tell lies to hide the truth."

In this sense, Vendetta is highly ambitious, yet it manages to slaughter sacred cows with aplomb. Media outlet BTN, for instance, is pummelled for skewing reality and creating a climate of fear to prime citizens for despotic infringements upon personal liberties.

Conspiracy theorists need only look to avian influenza and constant reminders of imminent terrorist attacks in the real world to see parallels in the film's portrayal of a viral pandemic. As dissident TV host and Evey's compatriot Dietrich (Stephen Fry) puts it, "Our job is to report the news, not fabricate it. That's the government's job."

Gay audiences will also enjoy the tenderly felt lesbian sub-plot, from which Evey derives her strength. The line "I never understand why they hated me so much" is perhaps the most universal in the film. This, and other gay references in Vendetta reflect today's discrimination taken to extremes, and inspires pathos and sympathy.

The Wachowski brothers (The Matrix Trilogy), who penned the screenplay, ingeniously updated this comic adaptation to include oblique references to the Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay human rights scandals and Islamophobia. Yet all this is deftly crafted in the framework of a comic miniseries, so it manages to be political without alienating the popcorn-loving masses.

For action junkies, producer Joel Silver (Predator, Lethal Weapon) does not disappoint. Blood is spilled in pints and the final scene of destruction is juxtaposed with an energetic symphonic score, carrying a poetic justice like no other.

Vendetta is a Molotov cocktail consisting one part Orwell's 1984 and another part Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, with heaps of powerful symbolism and philosophical ideas. The phrase "resistance is futile" never meant so little.