Something today drew me to checking out new releases to rent on Amazon Prime.  I was going to choose Golda, a biopic about the prime minister of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.  It is a film I noticed while walking the halls of cinemas this year, one that, I am guessing, its makers hoped would make back some of its production costs with a theatrical release.  Given that it stars Helen Mirren as Golda Meir, I would be willing to bet that it is a fine movie.  However, they wanted $19.99 just for the rental.  That appeared a little steep for me, so I kept searching.  Thus, I landed on The Baker, starring the seemingly equally old Ron Perlman as Pappi Sabinski, the eponymous character.  Perlman is a good actor if given the right material, though usually does so in a supporting role.  Thus, my curiosity here was to see if he can carry a piece in the spotlight.  On the whole, I think he does fine.  Read on to find out how.

The Baker first establishes Pappi’s current profession, making bread for his own business, but it also fits his lifestyle.  This is not the best thing.  He sleeps little, waking up nightly from nightmares of awful things he did as a soldier.  Because of the early mornings this brings, he goes to his shop to begin his day.  The life he led would make it unsurprising that he is estranged from his son, Peter (Joel David Moore).  Peter is working for a limousine service, waiting on picking somebody up from the airport.  As he sits in his car in the parking garage until the appointed time, he witnesses two sets of armed men kill each other.  As he is calling 9-1-1, he looks down and sees a bag that one of the combatants had died carrying while limping away from the scene.  I thought it contained money, but as we see later, it is drugs.  Either is bad news, but Peter decides to hang up with emergency services, grab the brightly colored duffel, and flee.  The next time we see him, he is bursting into the classroom where his daughter, Delphi (Emma Ho), goes to school.  As he picks her up, he explains over his shoulder to her teacher that they are going on a trip.  Instead of a vacation, he takes her to his father.  Pappi is not pleased to see Peter, and Delphi is weary of her grandfather, particularly since she had never met him.  Yet, Peter plans to leave his daughter with his father while he returns to the city to sell the contents of the bag.  After some convincing, Pappi relents when Peter promises to return the next day.  The person Peter contacts is Milky (Dax Ravina), a drug dealer with whom Peter has had some dealings.  Instead of arranging to buy the illicit substances, Milky sells Peter out to the Merchant (Harvey Keitel), the local drug kingpin.  In turn, the Merchant sends his enforcer, Vic (Elias Koteas), to meet Peter.  Peter tries to hand over the drugs, but finds the duffel full of Delphi’s clothes.  That is because the young lady, while fond of animals, is also a bit of a kleptomaniac.  During a moment alone in the car with the bag, she swapped its contents for those in her backpack.  Peter tries to tell Vic that he can get what he wants. Instead, he calls Pappi because Peter knows that he is about to die, basically giving his father the Cliff’s notes on how to be her dad, before he is shot and killed.  Pappi immediately knows something is wrong, and decides first to go to the police to see if they can help.  Due to the distance he had kept from his son, he cannot provide certain information about his son and they tell him that they are not able to help.  Thus, it is up to this trained killer to take matters into his own hands.  Because he has a load of these drugs, he uses them in order to figure out the supplier, working his bloody way up the supply chain.  Because he has Delphi with him, he tries to get her to stay away from these violent situations.  Since she is precocious, she usually does not listen.  Meanwhile, the police, led by Detective Petra Weintrager (Samantha Kaine), get interested when the bodies begin piling up.  All anyone has is Pappi once referring to himself as “The Baker.”  It had actually been Detective Weintrager with which Pappi had met, giving her the name of his son.  However, any further investigation about him always came back as being classified, which should tell you the type of activities in which Pappi was once involved.  Detective Weintrager’s partner, Detective Luca Rispoli (Paolo Mancini), does not help matters.  He is working for the Merchant and feeding Vic information the police are compiling on Pappi, hoping to claim part of the bounty put on Pappi.  Eventually, Pappi learns that his son is dead, something that he had suspected for some time, and is about to return home with Delphi to try to figure out how to raise her.  Before he can leave, henchmen are sent to the hotel at which they had been staying.  Though Pappi is able to fend them off, he is severely wounded in the process and has to go to the hospital.  Detective Rispoli once more tips off Vic, but this, too, backfires and Pappi is able to arrange to meet Vic.  Vic takes Pappi to where Peter is buried, and is about to kill the criminal when Delphi appears.  This causes Pappi to relent, but he does learn about the Merchant.  This name has some meaning to Pappi, but how is not explained.  In any case, Pappi returns the drugs to the Merchant and is allowed to walk away.  The final scene is of Delphi and Pappi in the airport, the girl saying her first words of the movie.

There is a mid-credits scene in The Baker with somebody sneaking up on the Merchant.  The screen goes back to the showing those responsible for making this movie with a gunshot, never showing anything else.  I do not think it is Pappi because seeing Delphi at the end reminded him why he had left his old life behind.  Murdering the Merchant would have been a regression.  Such vagueness is frustrating, but it also gives one room to choose.  There is a connection to be made here with our God-given free will.  Our world is the way it is because of the kinds of people that Pappi used to be, though the exact nature of that is left unclear.  Whatever it was, it was violent.  People get into modes of behavior or situations where they think that they have no choice but act (or react) in a certain way.  To kill as Pappi apparently once did, and is starting to again, leaves a mark on a person.  Modern society often refers to this as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and that is fine.  Theologically, one would call this woundedness.  Remarkably, it is not Pappi that gives voice to this truth, but Vic.  In conferring with the Merchant, he wonders aloud whether God could ever forgive him for the things he had done, like killing Peter.  Vic is particularly haunted by this act when he learns that Peter has a daughter.  And that is what many in Pappi and Vic’s place want: forgiveness.  It is the kind of reconciliation that only God can provide, though few turn in that direction, unfortunately.  This is true for Pappi, though he should be commended for not killing Vic at the end.  As for the Merchant, you can make up your own mind.

While I enjoyed the choice of Ron Perlman for The Baker, they had to employ certain filming techniques to make it look like the septuagenarian could keep up with the action sequences.  This made for a lot of low lighting.  This, combined with a somewhat slow-moving plot, can make for some droopy eyelids.  Nonetheless, I admire the good to which Delphi inspires him.  I pray that God brings you similar inspiration.  As for the film, I am conflicted as to whether I would recommend it.  It is violent, but it has a heart, so proceed with caution.