In Witness, a young Amish child on his first trip into Philadelphia witnesses a killing. John Book, the police detective investigating the murder, discovers police corruption that threatens him and the Amish boy's life. He gets the boy and his mother back to their home, where due to injuries, Book has to stay while mending.

Book is a hard, violent and cynical man. He spends his time dealing with the dark side of life. He sees himself in some ways as a “white knight” doing good in a world filled with evil - even if it means using violence to get it done.

The Amish are a small sect of Christians that are best known for their simple lifestyle and rejection of many modern conveniences such as electricity and automobiles. [For more information on the Amish, see
http://www.religioustolerance.org/amish.htm.] They live in separate communities because they want to maintain their ways and they do not want outside influences to their lifestyle. They are also strictly nonviolent.

When Book is in the Amish community, there is a conflict of culture and attitude. He is accepted as a guest, but not as part of the community. Even that acceptance as guest is only because of his need. He is a danger to them - not only because he is an outsider, but because the corrupt police are looking for him. But through their interaction, Book is confronted with a way of life that calls all his assumptions into question.

This is especially true for his assumptions about violence. He comes from a violent world and has learned to use violence in ways that he sees as proper. However, whether those ways truly are proper is very much called into question. In one scene, Eli, the boy's grandfather, explains to young Samuel the danger of a handgun - not so much the danger of how it could hurt people, but the damage it does to the user. He says, “What you take into your hand, you take into your heart.”

In another scene, Book has gone into a nearby town with a group of Amish. An oafish bully begins to taunt and assault them. Eli tells Book this happens sometimes. We watch as the focus of the bully's taunting does nothing to respond, until finally Book can take it no longer and uses his fist to teach the lout a lesson. On the one hand, we sort of applaud that the bully got what he deserved. But on the other hand, we know that Book has embarrassed his friends, and worse, has become the thing he is fighting. He wins only because he can be a bigger bully. The nonviolence the Amish were practicing was a much more powerful statement than Book could make.

Eventually (and because of the violence Book used in town), the bad cops find him and come to the peaceful setting to kill him. Although violence is necessary in this struggle, in the final accounting, it is not violence that wins the day, but the fact that many Amish, all unarmed, and who have come and are watching - witnessing - that brings the violence to an end.

The film is a beautiful look into Amish life - farming, barn raising, family, the simple life. But more, it is a look at people who are trying to live out their faith in the midst of a culture that goes counter to nearly all they believe. The film is a look at what it can mean to make one's faith a way of life.

The title, Witness, really has at least three meanings in this film. It is first of all the boy who is a witness to murder and has to be protected. It is also the crowd that comes in the final battle and through their witnessing of what is happening put an end to it. But mostly it is the witness that the community makes through their lives.

When Book goes back to Philadelphia, we know that he can never be the same person he was. How many people's lives can be changed by the way we live out our faith?