Anyway. I can't find anything wrong with Safire's review.
Please, then, allow me to help you.
— the bar against film violence has been radically lowered. Movie mayhem, long resisted by parents, has found its loophole; others in Hollywood will now find ways to top Gibson's blockbuster, to cater to voyeurs of violence and thereby to make bloodshed banal.
Gibson's blockbuster is such not due to the "mayhem", but to the subject matter (the bar has been lowered? LOL!). It's not like Hollywood hasn't tried, thus this statement is an embarrassment to its author.
And finally, outrage: who was responsible for this cruel humiliation? What villain deserves to be punished?
If that was his reaction, he's lost. (Unless they're just not reporting the marauding Jew-seeking street gangs.)
Not Pontius Pilate, the Roman in charge; he and his kindly wife are sympathetic characters.
Pilate's wife, yes. But if Mr. Safire finds sympathetic a man who chooses political expediency over an innocent man's life -- while claiming an inability to recognize "veritas" -- again, this is his personal character failing.
The "review" is a study in projection.
Its all about a clever sophisticated new plan to further corrupt the youth of America by exposing them to excessive violence via Jesus Christ. Who knows the the breadth and scale of possible violent outbursts now that I have seen the Passion. Some one stop me before the violent message of the New Testament causes me to kill and maim.......
I know that Gibson's next move, will be to license special "The Passion of the Christ" torture implements, so that we can all participate in the new lesson we all learned from his movie.