The gory Gospel According to Little Mel has provoked a religious storm and even brought on a fatal heart attack in a US audience during the graphic crucifixion scene.

After sitting through what is a tantamount to a two-hour soak in a bloodbath, it's quite easy to see how your ticker might find things hard going.

Following the last hours of Christ's life - from his betrayal by Judas and denial by Peter to his death - Gibson's uncompromisingly realistic version of event spares us nothing.

But nor does it add anything to our sum of knowledge, merely providing an X-rated take on the most familiar narrative in the world.

The final hour practically unfolds in real-time as a flagellated Christ drags a 300lb cross up Golgotha after Centurions have flayed practically all the skin from his body.

The cameras viscerally focus on gouts of blood spurting from his body as he's nailed to the cross and it takes a strong stomach not to turn away.

That said, the scenes of blood-foaming brutality are of the type you can see depicted in the frescoes of countless Catholic churches across the globe.

It's all very literal and matter-of-fact: the script makes no attempt at any theological explanation or departure from the accepted texts - just familiar biblical soundbites.

This lack of context - just the occasional, fleeting flashback to the Sermon on the Mount or a light domestic scene with his mother Mary - leaves the extreme violence open to charges of gratuitousness.

Quite why the film has upset the Jewish lobby is a bit of mystery - it sticks steadfastly to the accepted version of events (in fact, a composite of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).

Indeed, Italians may have more cause to complain after witnessing the casual violence and gleeful sadism meted out by their Roman Centurion forebears along the way.

Essentially, Gibson, who comes from a solid Catholic background, is reaching to the converted - the crucifixion is the central event in his religion.

It's easy to sneer at his decision to use the original Aramaic and "street" Latin for dialogue, but the device actually lends proceedings a real sense of place and time.

But, for all that, it still plays like one those biblical American mini-series you can order on DVD through some obscure cable channel. Except directed by Sam Peckinpah.

Undoubtedly moving and, you feel, all too authentic, it's the cinematic equivalent of spending the evening in a medieval torture chamber.

Tim Evans