A Character With Character - Gil Birmingham as Bill Taba in Under The Banner Of Heaven
Jesus Christ! An atheist hero in an American TV show!
A seven-part drama about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in which the leading character is himself a Mormon - I usually couldn't slam the door quickly enough on a show like Under The Banner Of Heaven. Not even the fact it's based on a compelling real-life murder could convince me to spend some seven hours up to my hips in the faith that looked at all the other nutty religions and decided to turn the weirdness up to 11.
So why did I watch? Well, the involvement of David Mackenzie (the director of Starred Up and Hell Or High Water) had quite a lot to do with it. There's also no denying that, of all the actors to play an LSD lawman, Andrew Garfield has the goofy otherness so niche a role requires.
As for why I continued watching, look no further than the uniform excellence of the performances. Daisy Edgar-Jones, Wyatt Russell, Denise Gough, even the sometimes teak-like Sam Worthington - all are utterly compelling. But it's another member of the cast who really captured my imagination. While tolerance for the non-believer might now be at an all-time high in America, it remains a bloody tough country in which to be an atheist. All of which makes Native American detective Bill Taba both highly original and utterly embraceable.
Essayed by the stoic Gil Birmingham (the Twilight saga's Billy Black and Jeff Bridges' partner in Hell Or High Water), Paiute tribesman Taba doesn't have a whole lot of time for the Mormons who comprise 90% of the civil population of American Fork, Utah. He has no end of loathing for their religious convictions but is particularly disdainful of the ways in which the Mormons have painted episodes in their history to suggest they shared common ground with America's indigenousness population.
To illustrate this, we see a recreation of 1857's Mountain Meadows Massacre. In fact we see the massacre recreated twice, firstly in the church-approved fashion and then again in a manner more in keeping with the Paiute take on events. Needless to say, the two versions couldn't have less in common with one another if one occurred in Utah and the other took place in Yugoslavia. And yet the Mormon myth takes precedence and so Taba and his kin have to put up with the fake smiles and false bonhomie of the LSD members who now share their land.
While certain reviewers have seen the numerous historical flashbacks as one of the show's weakness, for me they are reason enough for Under The Banner Of Heaven to be considered a programme of real importance. Yes, much of what we see seems ridiculous, but there are plenty of people who've bought into it. And it's some of these people - albeit a very small, really twisted group of them - who're convinced that the murder of a young woman and her infant child is but the Lord's work made manifest.
But what of pairing so understandably cynical a character with a fully-paid up LSD devotee? Since both Taba nor Garfield's Jeb Pyre are fictional characters, one could easily accuse creator Dustin Lance Black of indulging in that old genre cliché, the mismatched police partners. What's happening here is more than just the latest retread of a tried and tested trope. It's not as pretentious and annoying as the overuse of 'trope', either.
No, while Taba and Pyre might go through the standard cycle of hating one another, then respecting one another then finally liking one another, this isn't another case of a cynical sod rediscovering the beauty and majesty of life thanks to a helping hand from a humble, God-fearing friend. Quite the opposite, it's Taba's atheism that ultimately allows Pyre to see the wood for the trees; to understand that followers of his faith are capable of lying, violence and so very much more, and that men without faith needn't be strangers to the truth nor the importance of doing the right thing.
But it's in the final scene of the final episode that Taba's humanity really grabs hold of the audience's heart. Over the course of the seven episodes of Under The Banner Of Heaven, Jeb Pyre goes from true believer to disillusioned agnostic. Which wouldn't be a problem were he not still devoted to his children and his devout wife. How to look like you're still a part of a flock when you've long since bid farewell to your fleece...?
It's a trick Taba is well acquainted with. And through performing a Piaute song which he likes to sing even though he no longer believes in its sentiment, he shows a man he now considers a friend how to maintain his marriage without jeopardising his (non)beliefs.
As an atheist, you're often asked what you believe in. In the case of Bill Taba, it would appear that he believes in people. Would that the same could be said for those who range under the banner of heaven.