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The Passion of the Christ (2004) [Review Re-View]
Originally released February 25, 2004:
The Passion of the Christ is a retelling of the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ’s life (perhaps you’ve heard of him?). In these final hours we witness his betrayal at the hands of Judas, his trial by Jewish leaders, his sentencing by Pontius Pilate, his subsequent whippings and torture and finally his crucifixion. Throughout the film Jesus is tempted by Satan, who is pictured as a pasty figure in a black hood (kind of resembling Jeremy Irons from The Time Machine if anyone can remember). The Passion spares no expense to stage the most authentic portrayal of what Jesus of Nazareth endured in his final 12 hours of life.
For all the hullabaloo about being the most controversial film in years (and forgive me for even using the term “hullabaloo”), I can’t help but feel a smidgen of disappointment about the final product. The Passion is aptly passionate and full of striking images, beautiful photography and production values, and stirring performances all set to a rousing score. But what makes The Passion disappointing to me is the characters. You see, Mel Gibson’s epic does not devote any time to fleshing out the central characters. They are merely ciphers and the audience is expected to plug their feelings and opinions into these walking, bleeding symbols to give them life. Now, you could argue this is what religion is all about, but as far as a movie’s story goes it is weak. The Passion turns into a well-meaning and slick spectacle where character is not an issue. And as a spectacle The Passion is first-rate; the production is amazing and the violence is graphic and gasp-inducing. Do I think the majority of people will leave the theater moved and satisfied? Yes I do. But I can’t stop this nagging concern that The Passion was devoid of character and tried covering it up with enough violence to possibly twist its message into a Sunday school snuff film.
For my money, the best Biblical film is Martin Scorsese’s 1987 The Last Temptation of Christ (also a film mired in controversy). Last Temptation, unlike Gibson’s spectacle, was all about Jesus as a character and not simply as a physical martyr. Scorsese’s film dealt with a Christ consumed by doubt and fear and the frailties of being human. But the best part is the final 20 minutes when Jesus is tempted, by Satan, to step down from the cross and live out a normal life. Jesus walks away from the cross, marries Mary Magdalene, fathers children (this is where the controversy stemmed from but they were married) and dies at an old age. Jesus is then confronted by his aging apostles who chastise him for not living up to what he was supposed to do to save mankind. Jesus wakes up from the illusion and fulfills his mission and dies on the cross. Now, with the story of Last Temptation an audience has a greater appreciation for the sacrifice of Jesus because they witness his fears and they witness the normal life he forgoes to die for man’s sins. There is a sense of gravity about what Jesus is sacrificing.
With The Passion Gibson figures if he can build a sense of grand sacrifice by gruesomely portraying the tortures Jesus endured. Even if it is Jesus, and this may sound blasphemous, torturing a character to create sympathy and likeability is the weakest writing trick you can do. Yes Jesus suffered a lot, yes we should all be horrified and grateful, and yes people will likely be moved at the unrelenting violence he endured, but in regards to telling a story, I cannot feel as much for characters whose only characterization is their suffering. Sure, The Passion flashes back to some happier moments of Jesus’ life, which I like to call the Jesus Greatest Hits collection, but the movie does not show us who Jesus was, what he felt (beyond agonizing pain) or the turmoil he went through in finally deciding to give up his own life for people that despised him. The Passion is not about character but about spectacle.
So let’s talk about the violence now, shall we? Gibson’s camera lovingly lingers on the gut-churning, harrowing, merciless level of violence. But this is his only message. It’s like Gibson is standing behind the camera and saying to the audience, “You see what Jesus suffered? Do you feel bad now? FLAY HIM MORE! How about now?” What was only three sentences of description in the Gospels takes up ten minutes of flogging screen time. Mad Mel has the urge to scourge. After an insane amount of time spent watching Jesus get flayed and beaten the violence starts to not just kill whatever spiritual message Gibson may have had in mind, but the violence becomes the message. The Passion does give an audience a fair understanding of the physical torture Jesus was subjected to, but the movie does not display Christ as fully human, enjoying life and love, or fully divine. The only thing The Passion shows us about Jesus is that the son of God sure knew how to take a whuppin’. For Gibson, the violence is the message and the point is to witness what Jesus endured. Some would call that sadistic.
The actors all do a fine job and it’s impressive that everyones’ lines is in two dead languages (Latin and Aramaic, though for the life of me I can’t tell them apart). But the acting is limited because of the nature of the film. Had there been more moments of character the acting would come across better. As it stands, the acting in The Passion is relegated to looks of anguish or looks of horror, interspersed with weeping. Monica Bellucci (The Matrix sequels) really has nothing to do as Mary Magdalene but run around in the background a lot. Jim Caviezel (Frequency, Angel Eyes) gives everything he has in the mighty big shoes he tries to fill. It’s too bad that his Jesus spends most of the screen time being beaten, which kind of hampers his acting range.
Now let’s address the anti-Semitic concerns. The Passion does portray a handful of Jewish religious leaders as instigators for Jesus’ eventual crucifixion, but there are also Jewish leaders who denounce their actions and just as many people bemoaning the torture of Jesus as there are calling for it. Who really comes off looking bad are the Romans. Excluding the efforts to make Pilate look apprehensive, the Roman soldiers are always seen kicking, punching, whipping, spitting on Jesus and laughing manically with their yellow teeth.
And like I said before, most people will be extremely satisfied with the film because it’s hard to find a person who doesn’t have an opinion on Jesus. Gibson is counting on audiences to walk in and fill in the holes of the character so that The Passion is more affecting. Gibson’s film is worthy spectacle, and despite the vacuum of character I did get choked up four separate times, mostly involving Jesus and his mother. The Passion is a well-made and well-intentioned film that will hit the right notes for many. I just wish there were more to it than spectacle. I really do.
Nate’s Grade: C
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WRITER REFLECTIONS 20 YEARS LATER
In 2004, Mel Gibson made an R-rated foreign film that was two hours of savage brutality against Jesus, and it wound up being one of the biggest box-office hits of the decade and forged a trail for other Hollywood execs to chase after a “faith-based audience.” It could be said that this grisly movie gave the people what they wanted, and apparently what they wanted was to watch their messiah suffer physical feats that should have killed any mortal five times over. Twenty years later, The Passion of the Christ is still a curiosity, a movie with so much technical quality and devotion to a specific purpose, but that purpose is so narrow: make people feel bad. If you were being charitable, you could argue that the sacrifice of Jesus is felt stronger when every whipping, beating, scourging, and blood-letting is endured from the audience. Except I don’t believe this, because that assumes that more time spent on visual carnage equals more appreciation earned, as if our empathy has an equation. The emphasis on the death of Jesus feels like a telling insight into certain elements within mainstream American religious culture, where the focus is on violence and loss and less so the resurrection of Jesus, wherein the man conquers death and preaches forgiveness of sin for all mankind. It’s the preoccupation with grievance and brutish power over the helping of others different and less fortunate from ourselves. I’m not going to say the hard-core fans of The Passion of the Christ are valuing the wrong spiritual ideals, but it was this Jesus guy who did say everyone should love thy neighbor as thyself.
This is going to be a rarity for my twenty-year re-review series, but I agree almost one hundred percent with everything I wrote in 2004. I can’t really improve upon that analysis and my explanation for the faults of the movie and its spiritual shortcomings. Some of these lines are still terrific: “…Twist its message into a Sunday school snuff film,” “The only thing The Passion shows us about the Son of God is that he sure knew how to take a whippin’,” and, “Mad Mel has the urge to scourge.” More time is spent obsessing over the blood of Jesus than any of his words. I’m still debating the exact legacy of this movie besides as a harbinger of a wider Christian marketplace as well as Jim Caviezel’s own god complex. Gibson only directed two other movies after, 2006’s Apocalypto and 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge. His personal failings also became hard for many to ignore after his anti-semetic drunken ramblings and allegations of abuse, relegating him chiefly to direct-to-streaming (13 films from 2020-2023). In many ways, The Passion of the Christ represents Gibson at his height of powers within Hollywood, and it was accomplished outside the studio system who thought he was crazy, though he proved them right for different reasons.
Some strange Passion facts lost to history. 1) This movie actually killed a viewer. During the crucifixion scene, a man suffered a fatal heart attack and later died. Sure, the man’s genetics and life-style choices are more likely at fault here, but had this man not seen Gibson’s movie he might have survived or at least been in a better capacity to deal with his eventual heart attack symptoms. 2) Gibson attempted to re-edit the movie for a PG-13 theatrical re-release in 2005, trimming five minutes of some of the more gruesome violence, yet the MPAA still said the movie was keeping its R-rating. 3) During filming, Caviezel was literally struck by lightning. 4) A sequel has been in development for almost twenty years, confirmed by Gibson’s Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace in 2016. In 2023, Gibson revealed he has multiple versions of the sequel script in the works, including one that visits hell. Caveizel has predicted the possible sequel would be the “biggest film in history,” but this is the same guy who declared Donald Trump as the modern-day Noah, so maybe let’s not regard this guy too credibly with his opinions.
The challenge with any on-screen depiction of Jesus is fleshing him out as man and god. Only focusing on one obscures the complexity of characterization, denying filmgoers a more engaging examination of the key figure of Christianity. I’d still advise everyone to watch Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ for all the important elements that The Passion of the Christ lacks. This is a movie designed only for brutal spectacle and nothing more, and it’s just as tedious and empty now as it was twenty years ago. Apparently, Scorsese feels like he still has more to say on the subject and is planning another Jesus movie based on a 2016 book by Shūsaku Endō, the same author of the source material for Silence. While I would maintain that Scorsese has already made the greatest movie about Jesus, as well as the greatest movie about the exploration and challenge of reckoning with faith (2016’s Silence), who am I to deny one of our living legends another bite from the apple? It’ll certainly be more spiritually meaningful than watching an execution of Jesus for two miserable hours designed as enlightenment.
Re-Review Grade: C-
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Adeline (2022)
The story behind Greg James, the filmmaker from Ohio, is surprisingly tied to, of all things, dodgeball. In 2004, the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was released and grossed $168 million worldwide, but there were two legal challenges accusing copyright violation to writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber, and both have central Ohio connections. The first was by writers Ernando Ashoka Thomas and David Price, a Bexley, Ohio native that put his own experiences as an adult dodgeball tournament organizer into the script. Where things get interesting is that this other script, entitled Dodgeball: The Movie, was passed along in March 2001 to Shaun Redick, who worked for an agency and was friends with Thurber. This was one month before Thurber finished and registered his draft of his dodgeball screenplay. During the copyright lawsuit in 2005, a judge determined that a jury might “reasonably infer” that Thurber had access to the other dodgeball screenplay via Redick. There were other similarities between the two scripts that appear to be more than just formula and genre trappings, like both featuring a wheelchair-bound former dodgeball champion who becomes a coach and dies in a freak accident midway through before the big game but then reappears as a ghost to cheer them on.
The second and lesser-known suit was for authorship of that other dodgeball script, and that’s where James comes in. He and Thomas worked together under the YNOT production company they founded. They directed and produced a movie in 2001, Raw Fish, that Thomas wrote. Afterwards, in 2001, Thomas was working on the dodgeball script and James claims he was a co-author (Price was not listed as co-author until 2004 in screenplay registration). Thomas listed himself as the sole author on all the drafts he copyrighted and shared, and because James did not assert his copyright dispute until 2005, the statute of limitations ran out. James said that Thomas removed James’ name from the cover page before submitting the draft but never inquired further because he trusted his would-be partner. Lacking proof of collusion, and beyond the three-year window, James’ case was dismissed. The suit with Thomas and Price against Fox was later settled for an undisclosed sum, and James was left with nothing.
James returned to Columbus after 25 years in L.A. and was inspired to make a local story into a feel-good family film that could inspire others. Adeline is based on a horse at Serendipity Stables that provided therapeutic care for children with disabilities and those on the spectrum. In 2002, a tornado struck and Adeline reportedly held people against a barn wall to protect them rather than running away from danger. The horse’s bravery was rewarded by locals donating over $15,000 to allow Adeline to receive life-saving surgery (Adeline lived another three years). Adeline is James’ homecoming, and it’s sweet and slickly produced to look like any number of other faith-based inspirational family films, and that’s also its problem, if you find that to be a problem.
In a small Ohio town, Kay (Jane Mowder) moves onto a horse ranch and her presence changes everything. Bethany (Orli Gottesman) is running from foster home to foster home for setting fires, but one encounter with Adeline the horse and she’s rethinking her pyromania. The town preacher John (David Chokachi) and his wife Terry (Erin Bethea) have an autistic son who takes a shine to Adeline and actually speaks. John is skeptical and worries putting faith into Kay and her holistic solutions will lead to another disappointment. He challenges his parishioners to not lose sight of where to place their faith, and then the big tornado comes twistin’ through.
If you’re fans of sweet feel-good movies, Adeline will likely hit most of what you’re looking for, but I found the central idea a little too simplistic to the point of incredulity. In short, this is a magic horse. This is the only conclusion I must derive from what I see onscreen. I love animals. I always have. As my fiancé would attest, they flock to me. With that being said, I have a problem with animal movies because too many of them feel lazily projected onto the animal as its symbol. I had this same feeling with the 2020 inexplicably Oscar-winning My Octopus Teacher: “Does this octopus really see this man in a snorkel as a friend or an ally? She reaches out a tentacle to touch the appendage of this underwater man, but what does that mean? Is this signaling a friendship or is it merely signaling an animal taking stock of its surroundings? I don’t know and depending upon your personal relationship with the animal world, you will either accept everything [this man] says at face value without skepticism or you will see him as a slightly foolish romantic.” Adeline is such a magic horse that all it takes is Bethany looking once into her eyes to break her free from her fire-setting impulses. Adeline is such a magic horse that all it takes is a couple of rides and the preacher’s autistic son is now talking. This horse is spoken about in such grandiose terms and yet the screenplay by Sam Lewis doesn’t make the horse a character, which can be done for animals (see: Seabiscuit). The problem is that if effort is not put into giving the horse something, then the horse is merely a plot device for easy miracles. It might as well have been a magic couch whereupon every sit heals thy sitter. Given this horse’s track record, I’m surprised the town didn’t trot Adeline into their office to fix any budget shortfall. I know this is based on a true story, and I’m being more than a little facetious, but we need more from the drama than “Person A nuzzles horse or rides horse. Person A is now better. Repeat.”
Where the movie seems to want to go is the idea of alternate routes of healing, and this has dramatic potential that’s never fully realized. Much of the conflict revolves around John being skeptical and unwilling to see the benefit of the horse. His job asks him to put his faith in God and not a horse. He’s also hurting because of the frustrations with raising a non-verbal autistic child that he has difficulty communicating and connecting with. At one point, he even says he blames God for cursing his family (yikes). It looks like Adeline is going to be a conflict between traditional faith and alternative healing, an Old School versus New Age kind of battle. It appears that John might even feel threatened by the horse, like his parishioners will start looking to the special horse for answers and healing rather than their local minister. Does he feel threatened? Does he think his authority is being challenged by the horse or by God? Had the script really explored this personal crisis it could have made for an interesting character study about belief systems in conflict. Instead, it mostly plays as John being the most stubborn man who has to be the last one to accept the gift of Adeline. Lacking that depth, it means we’re just waiting for John to finally come around to the obvious, and it can be a frustrating waiting game. Even after the horse protects a dozen people from a tornado, David still pushes back. He even lays out a theory that since the horse farm was the only one hit by the tornado that God must disapprove (people literally groan and walk out of church in disgust after he proposes this theory). I think re-centering the movie on one man’s crisis of faith, accelerated by already feeling shaken from his son’s diagnosis, would be the smarter storytelling foundation rather than making the horse the magic new neighbor.
The story has too many characters and subplots that don’t get enough attention, but at the same time Adeline benefits from a pacing standpoint by having more stories to switch over. The Bethany storyline could have been its own movie but she feels more like Exhibit A for the miraculous potential of the horse. We’re told that she can’t stop starting fires and bounces from foster home to foster home, and all of a sudden Kay agrees to adopt her on the spot, and why not if all it takes is one encounter with Adeline to prove curative for Bethany’s troubles? Because this conflict is amazingly resolved so quickly, we have to add the extra conflict of the town teenagers bullying Bethany for her past, though this is comprised to one scene where the kid she may or may not have a crush on, Jason (Jake Satow), stands up for her and punches the lead bully. This is the end of Bethany being picked on for her past. Having an outcast character in a small town is a good viewpoint and a natural source of conflict going up against community expectations. Unfortunately, Bethany is just treated like a testimonial. Likewise, the autistic child is merely a plot device, and the script then transforms Terry into little more than a pleading support network. She wants her husband to acknowledge the healing power of the horse. That’s about it. She’s the sweetly smiling, eyes-glistening “why won’t you see?” figure in these kinds of movies. I think the character that suffers the most is Kay. She doesn’t feel like a person but yet more of a plot device. She stirs up the status quo, and she has a mysterious past, and yet she’s just deliverer of miracles without further dimension.
Even though its budget was half a million dollars, Adeline looks and sounds like a professional movie that would ably fill the scheduling slots of a Hallmark or Christian TV network. The cinematography by Dan Parsons (Treasure Lies) is rich and autumnal in its color palate, and the use of dappled lighting and depth of field visual arrangements helps add an extra pleasing cinematic quality to the movie. The score is also quite nice by Erik Schroeder, a man with over 100 scoring titles to his name. It’s pleasant and twinkly without overwhelming the emotions on screen. The special effects with the tornado and its destructive wake are quite good for the budget. The acting is above average too. Mowder (Foxcatcher) is dignified, Chokachi (Baywatch) is perfectly flummoxed, Bethea (Fireproof) is winsome, and Gottesman (1-800-HOT-NITE) has a natural presence that makes me think she has even bigger opportunities on the horizon. Plus, there’s the always enjoyable Ralph Scott (Double Walker) as John’s unflappable friend and soothing voice of reason.
There is plenty to enjoy with Adeline. It’s a passion project where you can feel the affection of everyone, and James has an invisible ease behind the camera. The acting and technical merits are solid and the pacing keeps things moving smoothly. Where Adeline frustrated me is with its screenplay that settled too often on its staid formula. We’ve seen these kinds of movies before and Adeline rests upon that familiarity a little too often for me. Genre fans will find enough to satisfy them, and everything is kept at such a family-friendly level of nice (even the disagreements are short and never more than G-rated) that is wholesome without feeling overly maudlin. I think the screenplay could have done much more with its pieces, but my opinion is going to be a minority for the movie’s target audience. Adeline is a nice movie about good people experiencing good tidings and will leave many people feeling, mostly, good.
Nate’s Grade: C
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The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)
Deeply compassionate but perhaps a little too minuscule, The Eyes of Tammy Faye is the biographical movie about Christian broadcasting pioneer Tammy Faye and her rise and fall along with her bad husband, televangelist Jim Bakker. This is based upon the 2000 documentary by the same name, which is well worth watching the real Tammy Faye provide reflective insights into her unique life. For the live-action film, Tammy is played by Jessica Chastain, who apparently held onto the film rights of Tammy Faye for over a decade, meaning this has been a dream project for the Oscar-nominee. Chastain is fantastic and nails the chirpy voice, ebullient personality, and general naivete of a woman who was a true believer and loved all people so thoroughly that her empathy could be used against her, like when Jim (Andrew Garfield) chastises her for saying gay people are deserving of love, not condemnation, in front of none other than Jerry Falwell (Vincent D’Onofrio). The movie clearly presents Tammy Faye as a genuine soul, though part of this appeal is mitigated by the broadly comic tone of the movie. Under the direction of Michael Showalter, a man more known for farcical satires, The Eyes of Tammy Faye veers into stretches of camp bewilderment, where the movie is inviting you to laugh at its eccentricities. It never fully stabilizes, and the movie feels like it wants to humanize this woman but then also laugh at her. To be fair, Tammy Faye is such a broadly theatrical character who undergoes dramatic physical changes as she ages, her heavy makeup becoming like warpaint. The film’s makeup is likely going to be an Oscar-front runner as it completely transforms Chastain into the chipmunk-cheeked Faye over the course of four decades. The best parts of the movie for me were the strife between her and her husband, an insufferable man too high on his own ego and jealous of his wife’s success. When Jim Bakker confesses to his own infamous affair with his secretary and hasty cover-up, he tries to pin the blame on his wife, saying he must have done it to try and prove something to her. Tammy Faye is a unique woman who lived the gospel she preached when it came to unconditional love. She embraced those with AIDS in the 1980s (recreated in a moving interview), she saw her position as one to remind people of God’s kindness rather than his judgement, and her lifelong interest in puppets and children’s ministry shows her priority in making worship inclusive. The Eyes of Tammy Faye won’t tell you much more about Tammy Faye under the surface but then again maybe there wasn’t. She even says she’s an open book, what you see is what you get. The world would be a better place with more Tammy Fayes leading the way and fewer Jerry Falwells.
Nate’s Grade: B
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A Father’s Fight (2021)
Even though it doesn’t quite count as an Ohio indie, filmed primarily in southern Indiana, I was requested to write a review for the low-budget, faith-based film, A Father’s Fight, which is currently enjoying a small theatrical run in West Virginia and in its Hoosier home state. This was a passion project years in the making for director Tyler Sansom (Restore). Its $30,000 budget was fully financed by a local church and many of the cast and crew worked as volunteers, aiding the production which was filmed during COVID. In many ways, the movie is already a success story, a lot of people worked together to see an artistic vision to completion and during some of the most dire and restrictive circumstances of modern times. A Father’s Fight is a rare Christian indie that has more in mind than preaching to the choir. It wants to entertain too as it uplifts.
Bo Lawson (Travis Hancock) is a drunk. He’s also a lousy husband, yelling at his wife, Kacie (Sarah Cleveland), and ignoring her threats to leave with their two kids. Then she does it, and Bo doesn’t know how he can get his life back together. Enter Sal Burton (John French), his old boxing trainer, with an offer of a lifetime. It seems the reigning boxing champ wants to come back to his home town to stage a charity bout for the community, and the champ has personally requested to fight his old rival, Bo. This is his chance to make a statement, to shape up, and to win back his wife and perhaps find a new strength through Christianity.
For a faith-based film, I am happy to report that A Father’s Fight is refreshingly more concerned with its characters than purporting a big message. This has been my bias for Christian movies time and again, and it’s usually reinforced by slapdash storytelling that spells out a pragmatic assessment of, “Well they’re coming for the message and not the intricacies of plot and multi-dimensional characters.” Any viewer, no matter their personal belief, deserves a story worthy of their attention and characters that have depth and care. With this movie, it’s far more a domestic drama than a sports film. It has more to do with Marriage Story than Rocky. The boxing doesn’t even come until the final five minutes, which in hindsight also feels like too little boxing. I was impressed that the screenplay by Hannah Mowery does not get pushy with its spiritual message. The first real reference to the power of faith doesn’t even occur until 45 minutes or so into the film, and Bo doesn’t attend church until after an hour into the movie. In the realm of Christian indies, this is remarkable restraint. By no means are the filmmakers soft-pedaling their affirmative message. They just realize that it will be more powerful, and accessible to a wider audience, if you’re sincerely invested in the characters, their humanity, and their redemption. The power of their story will be better translated if they feel like characters rather than bland figures.
It’s here where A Father’s Fight shines brightest, with its depiction of alcoholism and abuse. He’s spiraling, angry all the time, drinking whenever he can, projecting much of his disdain into outbursts against his wife trying to control his behavior, judging him and his failures, and we recognize it as the Drunk Abusive Husband in your standard made-for-TV melodrama. Granted, this is a faith-based film in a PG realm, so the danger of abusive behavior will only go so far, but this movie pushes it. This does a few things for the narrative. It establishes a clear baseline of bad behavior, the Before, that we can judge the protagonist’s progress against, the After period, the triumph. It also makes it more challenging to connect with Bo. He has to earn our respect just like his wife. What’s even more appreciated is how the screenplay really treats Kacie as her own character worthy of consideration, heartache, and struggle. She gets a lot of screen time here, almost equal to Bo during those first 40 minutes, and I thought it was terrific. It’s shockingly rare for the other half of an abusive relationship to be given legitimate consideration and voice. Too often movies will place the wife as a prize needing to be won through penitence or the symbol of How Far the Man Has Fallen, the chief victim that represents the toll of his decline and misery. With A Father’s Fight, my favorite moments where when the script just gives Kacie time to share her complicated feelings, and they are refreshingly complex. She’s torn over what to do, she’s upset with herself that she still worries over this man, she sees her kids and sees her husband in them, and she recognizes her value and that she deserves to be treated better. The brief monologues where Kacie pours out her heart, her frustrations, with Bo, with herself, are the highlights of the film. The characterization is nuanced and empathetic.
The other main characters stand tall. Bo is following a pretty familiar redemption arc, and the vehicle of boxing seems tailor-made for a redemption story, a man voluntarily inflicted with pain to atone or prove a larger point of sacrifice. Adding a spiritual element to that redemption story seems pretty natural and familiar for a formula. The character of Bo isn’t quite as nuanced or clear as Kacie but there’s enough there to qualify as a heartfelt if not entirely satisfying character arc. His apologies and personal growth by the end feel genuine, and his acknowledgement that he has hurt those he loved and doesn’t deserve their forgiveness sets a nice balance for a Christian message about mankind not deserving its own sinful forgiveness. It works, it just could have worked better (more on that later). Bo is strapped into the reliable redemption track but there are points that confused me. At one point, he is backing out of a parking space, almost hits a pedestrian, and the angry pedestrian provokes Bo to almost fight him. This passing incident, with a guy we’ve never seen before, is curiously the thing that almost pushes Bo off the wagon and back to drinking. Why? Why would this one incident have that drastic effect? It’s not like he did get into a fight with the guy. The early Bo is never really clarified why he’s in such a stupor. He’s angry, but angry at what and why? Does he just feel stuck? Emasculated? Unable to provide? A little more time setting up how he fell into drinking and his life before would have smoothed this out. Also, this upcoming fight is with the literal champion of boxing but we don’t ever get a strong sense of what it means for Bo. This is a big deal, something that would attract national media attention, and yet it is never treated like a big deal (Bo is only making a laughably paltry $5,000 for his participation – IN A FIGHT WITH THE CHAMPION). What does this fight, the very title of the movie, represent for him? He’s told he needs to fight for what he believes in, which will ostensibly be the lessons of family, self, faith, etc., but why boxing? Why this guy? Why a champion? Does he want to become a boxer again? Is this his failed dream? It feels just like another odd job for our blue-collar protagonist.
There are two primary areas that detract from the mighty goals of A Father’s Fight: the second act squeeze and the strange editing. There seems to be a switch about 50 minutes into the movie where Act Two and all the personal growth we’re waiting to experience gets severely truncated. It’s hard to explain but the patience and nuance that was exhibited in the first 45 minutes starts to wave and the movie gets sloppy with its storytelling shortcuts. There’s one extending grocery shopping scene that seems to be the changing point. It’s Bo explaining all the changes in his life through one methodical trip down a grocery aisle, chatting to local busybody, Tammy Lynn (Lindsay Rawert). He’s explaining all the changes he’s undergone that we haven’t witnessed. He explains the guy he greeted was his AA sponsor, shows her his chip for being sober for a month, talks about how much he enjoys his time with his kids. All of this is important information and would certainly push Bo along on his predetermined redemption arc, but why are we being told it like we’re catching up with a long-lost friend who only has a few minutes to cover the basics? Why haven’t we been seeing these moments? Why didn’t we see Bo go to an AA meeting, feel uncomfortable and out of place, and then eventually open up, talk about his own history with alcohol and the wreckage it has caused him? It would be a dramatic breakthrough. The same with his interaction with his children. Let’s witness these moments, so that we can see their attitudes changing about their father that once scared and upset them in Act One. Movies are meant to be a visual medium and the screenwriting edict is “show, don’t tell.” The first half of A Father’s Fight was following this model. The second half seems to be rushed to tell us what it feels we need to know to fulfill our redemption obligations and get to the big finish.
The work by three credited editors, including the director, is also a frequent concern. There are several weird editing choices that took me out of the movie or undercut the intended drama. First off, many conversation scenes will awkwardly jump around an assortment of angles, and the pacing feels jumbled, especially when the 180-degree rule is frequently being broken and disorienting the viewer. I’m not a stickler that the 180-degree rule in film should be ironclad but flagrant violation throughout a scene creates unconscious disconnection. That can be put to good use if you’re going for something like loopy David Lynch territory. With a faith-based film, it’s distracting. There are drone shots wedged into montages that don’t need them because the production had drone shots and by golly they were going to be utilized regardless. The inclusion of certain shots and sequences also feels baffling. In the first act, Bo is picked up from the police station by his wife, and during the drive home we get flashbacks of Bo as a child watching his drunken father berate his mother. Minutes later, Bo returns home, immediately starts drinking again, and Kacie confronts him. He berates his wife and his two kids appear, horrified and afraid of how their father is behaving. Wouldn’t it make more thematic sense to include that flashback scene here, to make the connection that he is following in his father’s footsteps, and wouldn’t the scene simply have more dramatic impact here? Likewise, at the end of the movie, when Bo is fighting in the boxing ring, the movie’s big question is not whether Bo will beat the champion but whether Kacie will be present in support (so yes, it’s basically entirely Rocky). Bo gets knocked to the mat. He looks over. He sees his wife. He smiles. He has a reason to get back up, to continue fighting, renewed and stronger. Except that’s not what happens. He gets up, and the ref is checking with him, and he looks over and there she is. This is truly baffling to me. The obvious movie moment is, when he’s at his lowest, after taking the hit, he looks over and there she is. We don’t need to see her enter. It should be a surprise for the audience too and including it at its most dramatic point. We feel Bo’s elation. Fortunately, the movie doesn’t have a plethora of these moments but enough that add up and make me wish there had been a fourth editor to help.
The acting is much more subtle and controlled than what I was expecting from a faith-based indie where big theatrical acting can make the proceedings feel overly staged and phony. The three central performers deliver. Cleveland (End of the Road) is very emotionally affecting as Kacie, and she deftly handles the multiple conflicting emotions of a woman at the end of her patience. She’s the most nuanced character in the movie and Cleveland digs deep. She is not a cliche. Hancock (A Soldier’s Secret) has the more traditional role and leans into that familiarity but carries himself well physically and emotionally. His outbursts can be wince-inducing but his pleas for forgiveness can also ring true, aided by the character’s reflection and personal growth. French (The Right to Remain) has a really strong monologue where he reflects on his own war experiences and what motivated him to keep fighting. It relates to the larger theme of the movie, allows the versatile actor to slow things down, to open up, and become very vulnerable, and it’s a welcomed humanizing aside for a character that could have just been a standard coach cheering on our hero’s conditioning from the sidelines. I must admit this monologue is hampered by poor editing choices with quick camera pans and push-ins that feel entirely wrong. You want to slow things down and let the character have the moment, not ramp things up and distract. There is one major acting curiosity I need to cite and this belongs to Rawert and her thick accent. She sounds like she’s auditioning to be on Fargo (“Oh yay, yer’ goin’ inta tha boxin’ ring, doncha know”), and it’s a pronounced lilt that’s missing from every other actor in the movie. I don’t know if maybe this was her idea of a typical “Midwest voice” or a misplaced character choice.
As a faith-based drama, A Father’s Fight has a lot going for it and a lot I wish more Christian indies would prioritize. It puts its characters and story above its feel-good message, at least for half of the movie. The second half does feel rushed and sloppy, and while it does take away from the conclusion feeling fully earned, it cannot detract from the early good feelings. It’s a strange assessment that a movie has a first act, a third act, and a smushed second act, the one meant to bridge the problems to solutions, but there you have it. It’s quite possible there was more intended for the movie and the reality of budget and filming during COVID caused unfortunate shortcuts and the like. It definitely feels like the promise of the first 45 minutes was unable to be fulfilled for the second half. At 90 minutes, the movie could have even stood an additional 20-30 minutes of material to provide room for that character development and some time to breathe. Still, this is a professional looking production for its budget and the song selections are great finds, even if they quite often literalize the inner emotional state of characters onscreen. There’s much more right than wrong with this polished production, and I’m impressed with the consideration given to the characters, especially from the wife’s perspective. Most Christian indies feel more like elaborate sermons than genuine stories (sometimes they’re just Kirk Cameron lecturing you in a driveway). I think this film will play well with its target audience and even earn some fans from outside the flock, people who recognize the humanity of the people onscreen. Even with its limitations and weird edits, A Father’s Fight knows what it’s fighting for – your entertainment value.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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The Wager (2020)
The Wager is a gob smacking example about the utmost significance of screenplay structure and a lesson for others to learn and avoid. I was beside myself with frustration from this 90-minute movie available on Amazon streaming, occasionally yelling at my TV screen, but mostly I was dumbfounded by the storytelling choices. The wager of the title, which is also prominently noted in the synopsis attached for the film, doesn’t even occur until 78 minutes in. That’s right, you don’t get the hook of the movie until the very end. This astounds me. The Wager is an Ohio-made faith-based indie that generally bored me and occasionally made me guffaw or scream in bafflement. I’d wager unless you’re already among the faithful flock, you’re going to be unmoved and more than a little mystified by this tone-deaf drama.
Bruce (Ty Shelton) is a young man abandoned as a child and raised in the foster system. He gets into trouble at school and eventually gets plunged into a life of crime against his will. As an adult (Jim Gloyd), he’s strung out on drugs and resorting to petty robbery to find his scores. His childhood friend Suzy (Stephanie Haff) runs into him at a casino and offers spiritual outreach, but Bruce wants nothing to do with God. That is until an angel enters his life with a big bet about reliving Bruce’s tortured past with a new perspective.
If you’re going to present a Christian spin on the classic It’s a Wonderful Life formula, having a guardian angel intervene in a person’s life to show them a highlight reel of memories and what could have been, why wait until there’s only ten or so minutes left in your entire movie? Once Bruce does review his tortured life, it includes scenes we’ve already seen, including his birth, which begs the question why we needed to see these moments twice. It’s not like what came before this celestial review needed 78 minutes of undivided attention. For the first 15 minutes, all that happens is that an abused woman gives birth, drops the baby on the doorstep of the police, and the officers call social services. Did we need that to take up 15 minutes? From there we witness young Bruce getting in trouble at school and then being kidnapped (oh, there will definitely be more on this later) and living life as a drug dealer. We spend an hour establishing Bruce’s life as being awful, from child to adult, and it’s repetitive and deflating. How many scenes do we need to see of Bruce sleeping on the ground or shooting up drugs or being pushed around? Not only could the far, far majority of this plotting have been condensed considerably, it would have been more impactful to watch Bruce reflect on his experiences by re-living them rather than dwelling in the extended misery that made me wonder if this was going to be a modern-day passion play. Truly, imagine It’s a Wonderful Life but we spent an hour of watching George Bailey haggle over business practices with Mr. Potter. This central screenwriting miscue is just so catastrophic to the entertainment factor.
We could have easily established adult Bruce being a troubled man and the people of his past having difficulty recognizing the man they thought they knew from the movie’s start. This would establish that bad things have happened, and he could hint at more that he doesn’t want to reveal, and then the end of your first act could be him hitting rock bottom and getting his angelic intervention. We don’t need more than 20-25 minutes to establish how crummy this man’s life is. When given an hour, it just becomes too crushing and risks undercutting the message of personal redemption. Learning with the character about his life’s hardships would be more engaging with him having to come face-to-face with the them and his guardian angel partner. It also allows us to not have to be dependent on chronology and jump around to the major events we need to best define Bruce. This obvious structure makes so much sense that I am shocked the filmmakers missed out. Having an angelic guide would also force the character into conversation and confrontation and potential reflection, giving us better insight into the man than simply watching the events on our own without commentary. Simply put, you shouldn’t name your movie after a key plot event that happens in the last 15 minutes unless you’re a disaster movie and the Big One is finally striking.
The mistakes in plot structure also harm the overall slack pacing. The pacing is practically nonexistent for long portions. The energy level is so subdued that I thought I might just fall asleep. The camera movements will often utilize long takes and slow pans with minimal cuts, which just makes the lack of energy that much more palpable. So many dialogue exchanges sound like people are just reanimated zombies, and so much dialogue feels needlessly expositional. People talk in that phony way where they’re constantly repeating what the other person says but turning it into a question. It’s an inauthentic way of conversing that reminded me of Neil Breen’s silly films. Take these examples of poor onscreen conversations and see what I’m talking about:
“I have no clue what we’re going to do in Science today.”
“Me neither. I guess we’ll find out soon.”
“You’re right. See you there.”
Wow, did we need to be privy for that vital information? Or how about:
“I know you have your troubles, but I know you.”
“No, you don’t. That’s just how I act around you. I don’t think you know.”
“Just stop. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make excuses rather than accepting yourself for who you really are.”
Isn’t writing better when characters just blurt out another person’s internal dilemma for the audience? Or:
“He asked me for Herb’s Garage.”
“Oh yeah. I remember that place.”
“We all did. So, I didn’t expect a thing.”
We needed less time with scenes like these, where it feels like characters are detached and drifting with excess time to fill. There’s one long hallway exchange between a young Bruce and Suzy that lasts over a minute of chit-chat that feels like they’re just reading off the script. The performances have that rushed feeling, of sentences starting immediately after the next, but lacking an energy level that would justify the delivery. Simply put, when two or more characters are sitting down and talking, you might as well go get a refill or hit the bathroom. The chances will be good they will still be in that same sedate conversation and you will have missed little. This is why the structural choice to spend 78 MINUTES OF MOVIE on establishment scenes is so maddening, because writer/producer/co-star Gloyd did not have the material to cover the time.
Let’s get into what I think is the most egregious portion of The Wager and that is the lengthy middle where Bruce gets kidnapped and coerced into a life of crime. I thought we were headed for some Oliver Twist territory and we’d watch Bruce’s struggles over the pressure to commit criminal acts he was uncomfortable doing, maybe even while he schemed to escape. First off, the fact that the criminals are stereotypical depictions of black males made me sigh. I also was confounded why they placed so much emphasis on kidnapping teenagers and runaways to serve as drug dealers. When you have access to money and power, you have people that will come to you for opportunities (you’re a job creator). You don’t need to kidnap children and hold them hostage to sell your wares, especially having to worry whether they will run away or whether someone will recognize them as missing. It’s stupid risk. Considering these men just sit in the car and watch young Bruce make his first street corner deal, it’s not like they’re being terribly conspicuous.
And then there’s the undetermined time jump, which is revealed during one of those static camera angle montages. It’s a nice surprise; however, it means that Bruce has been sleeping on this same dirty mattress in the same room for, like, twenty or thirty years (also none of the items on the shelves moved in that same time, meaning Bruce never touched a thing in his living quarters or he is very, very particular about where things should go). The same crime bosses are still alive and in their same position of leadership. Bruce is now played by Gloyd in a horrendous looking ratty wig and I needed to know desperately how much time has passed. Gloyd definitely looks to be in his 40s, and this significant jump in time raises so many irksome questions. The police haven’t found adult Bruce in 30 years but the same officer who found him as a baby, who is still alive and working as a security officer, can recognize him on the spot? How old are these same criminal leaders then, and Bruce hasn’t ascended higher up the organization than street dealer? If we’re jumping that far ahead, wouldn’t it make more sense for Bruce to be the new leader, letting us know he has been molded under the negative influence of his captors? If he’s just going to be a drug-addicted adult then why do we need to jump so far ahead in time? The answer, it seems, is so that the writer/producer can have a starring role. That’s fine, but we could have done more structurally to maximize the drama rather than dwelling in redundant misery.
Let’s analyze the spiritual message at the heart of The Wager. Bruce’s life is pretty bad. He’s in and out of foster homes, gets abducted and held hostage as a criminal lackey, becomes addicted to drugs and desperate, and then homeless and contemplating suicide. He’s had, by all accounts, a hard go of things. He’s understandably resentful about the forces he feels have conspired to lock him into agony, so when other characters raise the notion of a loving God that has his back and watches over him, Bruce scoffs and views his life as refutation. There’s even a nature versus nurture argument to be had. In fact, the first time Bruce went to Suzy’s church was when he was abducted. The cop character tells Bruce he’s been praying for him since the moment they first crossed paths, but considering what Bruce has endured, that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for the power of prayer. Now obviously Bruce will conclude with accepting the love of God and finding a greater purpose with his life, but why did we need to wait so long? The end is never going to be in doubt with a Christian-themed indie any more than whether or not James Bond will get out of his latest scrape. That’s why refocusing the structure onto Bruce having to confront an angel over his feelings of abandonment from God would be far more dynamic, powerful, and I’ll say it, even Christian than the message as presented. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not questioning the faith and credentials of the filmmakers. I’m saying the way they go about telling their story makes the overall message less believably impactful.
The acting in The Wager is typically rather flat, given that energy-sapping direction that makes each scene feel twice as long. However, there is one actor I want to single out and that’s Cameron Arnett (Overcomer) as the unfortunately named Gabe Angelus (get it?). Arnett reappears in different roles, my favorite being a batty homeless man that helps out Bruce from time to time. In that moment, Arnett is so believable and arguably natural even while playing a highly mannered character. He immediately drew my attention and I remarked, “Here’s a good actor.” As for the other thespians, it’s hard for me to tell whether they just didn’t get the material to showcase their skills or whether those skills are in need of polishing. I know KateLynn Newberry (Widow’s Point, Dark Iris) as the queen of Ohio indies, and she’s pretty much wasted as a doting wife who lives to ask her husband what he wants for dinner. Fun fact: one of the crime lords is played by former Columbus resident and famous boxer James “Buster” Douglas.
With The Wager, I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Obvious dramatic setups seem to be sorely missed, a structural reformatting was in dire need to maximize the hook, because without that it’s like watching one poor man spiral and suffer for an entire feature-length film. It feels like overwrought overkill. Do we need a half-hour of a guy slinging drugs and sticking needles in his arm, without any supporting characters to interact with, or can this information be conveyed with practiced brevity? I am amazed at so many choices that left me scratching my head. The movie ends with our guardian angel staring into the screen and laughing maniacally for several prolonged seconds, even over the cut to black. What? This is the kind of behavior we associate with evil beings. Why do we need a flashback of a young girl running out the door when the adult version could have just relayed this event in words? I know Christian movie audiences aren’t exactly the most discerning audiences, prioritizing message over storytelling and technical achievement, but the decisions that the filmmakers make impair that faithful message. You don’t make an It’s a Wonderful Life story and just reserve it for the last 15 minutes. I advise select people to watch The Wager simply to learn what not to do with the importance of screenwriting structure. That’s its ultimate cautionary tale.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Alan and the Fullness of Time (2020)
I don’t think I’ve come across a movie with a title as curious in recent years as Alan and the Fullness of Time. This Ohio-made indie was created for a predominantly Christian marketplace so, fairly or unfairly, I went in expecting more emphasis on the message than the storytelling. I figured the titular “fullness of time” would be a larger lesson about using the time God has given you, seizing the day and such, or maybe even related to time travel (no such luck). What I got certainly felt like it was far from the fullness of its own meager running time and ideas.
Alan (Brooks Harvey) is a normal teenage boy except he isn’t. His parents belong to a Christian sect that has for generations plotted to protect a special savior. Alan wants to live a normal life, hanging with friends and going to parties, but he is thrust into a war between heaven and hell. After an attack at home, Alan is on the run to learn about his identity and accept his destiny.
This movie is maddeningly unclear in just about every aspect of storytelling. It feels like you’re watching a Mad Libs version of a story with missing blanks where there should be essential information. It seems like Alan is a classic Chosen One archetype along the lines of a Christian Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. Writer/director Markus Cook (The Deceived) repeatedly reminds the viewer how important Alan is in the larger scheme and how special he is but this is never fully explained except in very general terms meant to apply to any person watching, contributing to the idea that every life is important. That works as a comforting message but it doesn’t work explaining why Alan alone is so special. Likewise, if he’s so special and in hiding, why was he allowed to leave the house or go to a public school? The character would be far more compelling if he was a recluse not allowed to leave the house because his parents were overly protective with good reason. Sending the Chosen One that demons are looking for to a public school just seems careless (not an indictment on the quality of education). For that matter, why do these demons even bother waiting to attack? The Act One break involves demons attacking Alan’s parents and forcing him on the run, but if they’ve already infiltrated his school and are posing as his friends, why are they waiting? These are the kinds of things that add up and make a plot feel careless and under developed, and it starts early and often with Alan.
This lack of clarity extends beyond the first act and muddles so much of the conflict and characterization. After Alan’s parents are harmed, why does he not go to the police? What reason would he have for hiding at his school? He doesn’t know his fellow students were demons, at least not in a fully confirmed way of this hidden world of monsters. For that matter, why is Alan on the run and there is national media attention given to what happened to his parents? What reason does he have to not resort to the police? It would make far more sense for the demons to frame Alan for the violence at his home. That way he would have a reason not to turn to the authorities and make him feel more isolated and hunted. He would be limited seeking out help and refuge. This would also better explain why anyone even remotely cares about finding this kid from a media standpoint. I can’t imagine round-the-clock media updates on where the son of one crime has been if he is not clearly the chief suspect. Alan spends much of the rest of the movie learning about his parents’ hidden life and his own part in a larger war, but the world-building is far too vague for a story involving hidden conspiracies of good guys and bad guys. I think the movie is presenting an alternate world where some Christianity is outlawed by the government but this too is flagrantly unclear. Are these people being persecuted for their beliefs? It doesn’t feel like it onscreen aside from a few snarky comments from Alan’s teenage peers about his perceived boring life (and remember, they were really demons). Regardless, there is a branch of the NSA (or some other acronym) that is being run by a a centuries-old demon with Jedi mind trick powers, and yet even this is unclear too. What are the rules here? What are the limitations? What are the objectives? What are the stakes? If you’re presenting a “hidden world” story with powerful creatures and faith as a weapon, then we need a lifeline to grasp.
Alan is a fairly boring blank of a character. He’s angry because he keeps moving schools and feels like he doesn’t fit in, but once he’s on the run Alan becomes a receptive set of ears for people to fill him in on the power of faith, God, and his divine place in the world. Will Alan triumph? You know the answer but I can’t exactly explain it beyond him simply having more faith. Frankly, this character is not interesting enough to warrant a franchise. Even his vague powers as a Chosen One are not interesting enough to warrant further adventures. The most interesting character, by far, is Weston (Lucas Bentley) and he could have been cut completely from the narrative. He’s introduced early, apparently trying to escape to… the Chinese border for… reasons I’m still unsure about from the opening that literally begins with footage and audio of 9/11 (this inclusion is never fully earned and, at best, quite tacky). He was part of the same splinter group that Alan’s parents belong to, but Weston lost his faith after his wife was killed. He seems like he’s on a redemptive arc, the old gunslinger being called into one last battle to save a youth and find something worth fighting for. This doesn’t exactly happen but this setup made Weston the character I knew the most about, who had the most accessible struggle, and who could have easily been the lead perspective of the movie rather than the vacant Alan.
I think the filmmakers were going for a combination of an indie Christian YA character and their own version of a Jason Bourne spy thriller (you better believe I’m trademarking the term “Jesus Bourne” for future franchises). This would not have been the first indie to treat a Christian protagonist as a fugitive being hunted down for their beliefs, an externalization of a self-persecution complex I’ve never personally understood when a majority of Americans identify as some form of Christian. This scenario plays into the fears of its ready-made audience and it at least also provides a ready-made story for danger and intrigue. Rarely, however, have I seen a Christian indie that seems so taken with providing the “other half” of a Bourne movie, and by that I mean the desk jockeys clacking keyboards. With every Bourne movie, there is the Chief Chaser and his or her team of NSA agents manning banks of computer terminals and tracking down the whereabouts of our target. In normal spy thrillers, these moments provide scene changes and exposition, but they can also ratchet up tension as we, the audience, know how much closer these antagonists are getting to our hero. With Alan and the Fullness of Time, there are numerous check-ins with the agent half of this pursuit but it never raises tension or provides helpful clarity about the world or this agency. Part of this is because the boss Malkam (no first name, just… Malkam) is established as supernatural too early. Do the other agents know they’re working for a demon? Detective Lowell (Brittany Picard) pushes back occasionally saying they are misusing their government office, but nobody else seems to give much mind. I even think the end involves a siege of a church with literal gunshots and people killed, but again, the movie is too vague to clarify whether or not this escalation and the consequences made much sense.
It’s not like there wasn’t room to better develop this story, its world, the history and lore, and the characters. Alan and the Fullness of Time clocks in at 82 minutes, but for my online screening, the first three was an introduction by the lead actor, and if you wanted to discount opening credits and a minute of closing credits before a mid-credits sequence (why?), that means that Alan is actually approximately 76 minutes of material. There was more than enough space there to better flesh out, well, anything. If it was a concern about budget limitations, I don’t fully accept that because budget doesn’t limit how well you write for characters and conversations. The movie concludes with “Alan will return” and the promise of a sequel with a very Percy Jackson-sounding string of subtitles, Alan and the Rulers of the Air. If I had paid good money to watch this movie, I might be chuffed that the movie wants to carry over into a sequel when they didn’t even have enough material for 76 paltry minutes.
The dialogue can often be painful and stilted. For an action movie, there isn’t very much action. Most of the scenes from the Act One break onward are people chatting in cars, people chatting in churches, people chatting in homes, people chatting on the street. That would be great opportunities for the needed clarity and characterization lacking. It doesn’t help when these conversations include clunkers like, “At least we have that in common – dead parents. At least half of mine.” Dear reader, that line made me outwardly wince in pain. At another point the villain shows up with armed guards and says, “This is real lead and real brass, and they will pump you full of it.” Alan says he doesn’t have time and another character says, “Time has you, Alan. It has all of us. And it’s squeezing.” In reference to his school friends, who I remind you were demons that harmed his parents, he says, “They’re not my friends anymore.” Well, that’s good to know given the circumstances. Alan turns on a turncoat and says, “You sold me out. No wonder you can’t call us family.” I was a little worried about the implications of the line, “If you can pray, then you can fight.” At the conclusion, a character asks Alan how to teach her how to fight, and he hands her a bible, and we cut to credits. These are just the examples that stood out to me of bad dialogue. If we’re left with these characters and their thoughts, it is apparent that the filmmakers just were not equipped to provide them with appealing words to speak.
I don’t blame the performers because it feels like they were all following the same poor direction. Everyone in this movie is so subdued that I thought they would slip into a coma. This is intended to be a spy thriller, a chase movie, a world where demons can take human form and hunt the Chosen One, and nobody seems to be acting like it’s urgent. This does a tremendous disservice to establishing and maintaining tension. It completely saps the energy out of the movie. If the characters aren’t anxious or worried, then why should we be watching them? It’s too early to land a verdict on Harvey as an actor as this is his debut. I hope the future adventures of Alan provide the actor a better showcase and more energy. I want to single out one actor who was only onscreen for a few minutes but left quite an impression. In a movie filled with vague evildoers that seem too low-key, Kira Wilson (The Right to Remain) is definitely felt as the spooky principal to Alan’s school. She has a fun malevolence that is missing from the other bad guys and I can tell the actress is enjoying her wicked side. We could have used more of her.
I will credit the filmmakers for making a film that looks and sounds like a professional movie. The cinematography by Josh Bedsole doesn’t have a lot of focus depth but it looks crisp. The persistent hand-held camerawork provides an extra dose of energy to the proceedings and is another reminder of the film’s aspirations to be its own Bourne-style escapade. It’s a low budget movie, all things considered, but it doesn’t feel glaringly so that it’s distracting or compromising. The best part about the movie is the score by Josh McCausland and Jake Halm that adds excitement when it’s not being felt otherwise from the writing and direction. At points the electronic-infused score even reminded me of the work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Alan and the Fullness of Time doesn’t really justify your own investment of time. When you don’t provide enough explanation for your world when it’s different, when you don’t make it clear what the rules and limitations are, and when you don’t produce relatable and engaging character arcs, then you’re not really making a movie and more so making an inaccessible puzzle for the audience to piece together for their own fledgling entertainment. Alan and the Fullness of Time is not exactly an audience-friendly movie, despite the fact that its core audience will likely ignore its storytelling pitfalls because it admires its core message. I can feel the lack of storytelling finesse, as if the filmmakers shrugged and said, “It only has to be good enough to get us the next one.” I’ll even admit that the clips for the upcoming sequel look much more enticing and action-packed, but I haven’t been given enough from the first movie to hold out faith the second will deliver. This could have been Jesus Bourne, people.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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I Still Believe (2020)
I Still Believe was one of the last wide releases before theaters shuttled thanks to COVID-19. It was a low-budget Christian indie by the Erwin brothers, Andrew and Jon (I Can Only Imagine, October Baby). My expectations were already low and the final film is equal parts earnest and goofy, but where it goes wrong is with its stretched-out passion play built on suffering.
Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa) heads to college and falls instantly in love with art student, Melissa (Britt Robertson). He’s a budding Christian musician and gets his big break from fellow “student” and successful musician, Jean Luc (Nathan Parsons). Jeremy and Melissa’s relationship is tested when she is given a cancer diagnosis, but he’s unwavering in his support. They pray for help and struggle for meaning, with Jeremy turning to music for answers.
As with many Christian indies, I’ve discovered that the elements of filmmaking and storytelling are generally secondary to whatever the message is the film wishes to confirm for its built-in audience. So the details don’t really matter as much as the bigger picture, which in this case I assume is to inspire in its audience that even when they are suffering that God has a plan for them. I can see how people can find that topic comforting because one of the nagging questions in theology is over why a loving God would allow terrible things to happen to good people. The best the film can surmise is that there is a “greater good” sort of response we cannot know, and that the death of one person could have ripple effects and inspire many millions more. That’s what I Still Believe is proposing with its true story, namely that the tale of Jeremy Camp’s deceased first wife happened to inspire millions and bring them closer to God through Camp’s music and storytelling over his loss. Either you find that comforting and an answer enough or you don’t, but if you question that logic, then the movie demonstrating this resembles a cruel passion play.
Even before I started this movie, I knew that Melissa was going to die, and I knew her ultimate purpose was going to be to push the man along on his own spiritual and artistic journey. She dies so that you can become a better guitarist, Jeremy. I don’t mean to sound crass considering these are based on real people, and the real Melissa really died, and her friends and family felt real grief. My critical aims are with how the movie handles this and not her real tragic loss. I think many can be irritated when a movie says a character’s ultimate suffering was all to prop up another character; I’m reminded of numerous Hollywood stories about African-American suffering where it props up a white savior character to learn or achieve Important Things. This nagging feeling would have been lessened had Jeremy come across as a more compelling character in the movie and, even, a more compelling artist. He’s a pretty bland white dude and his music is fairly vanilla acoustic guitar soft rock. The music is earnest, it’s pleasant enough, but there’s nothing that really stands out, but that assessment is personal, I admit. I struggle with movies that try to convince me of someone’s artistic ascendance but don’t feel like they back it up with the evidence for that fame. The character of Jeremy onscreen is a nice guy, well-meaning, but he’s more interesting when he’s in the goofy love triangle with Jean Luc. Once Melissa gets her cancer diagnosis, his characterization just gets put on hold. He becomes a loving caretaker and then, once she inevitably passes, he becomes a loving and bereaved husband.
This is where I rankle because that cancer diagnosis comes so early and that is all the movie becomes afterwards, and when we all know where I Still Believe is ultimately heading, it becomes very tedious and arguably garish. The cancer diagnosis happens with an entire hour left to go, which means we’re left to watch Melissa get sick, everyone worry and cry, and when her remission happens with a half hour left to the movie, you know we’re just biding time until it comes back again because what else are we going to do with all this extra time? It’s not like Melissa, fresh from beating cancer, says to her man, “Let’s pull off a heist.” We all know where this is going, so this momentary reprieve and the movie treating it like, “Hooray, look at what prayer has done,” feels downright cruel because we know it’s not going to last. We know the rest of the road ahead is going to be watching her returned suffering, which is the entire movie. It is a passion play where we watch a young woman suffer and die so that we will ultimately get some songs written about her memory and experience. For those outside the target audience, this can become borderline offensive, and from a storytelling standpoint so much is left simply broad.
The most enjoyable parts of I Still Believe for me are how goofy it can be especially with its fuzzy details. This is a movie without any sense of humor and yet it can inspire laughter. Jeremy seems to be attending a school where he never has to do any work. This school is also I guess a regular stop for Jean Luc, an alum who has already become famous and has a backing band, so why does he just keep showing up to perform on this campus? Doesn’t he tour outside the school? Also, Jeremy is almost immediately successful. He’s thrown onstage in what amounts to the film’s Star is Born moment when Jean Luc invites Jeremy to share his special song to a live audience. From there, Jeremy is recording, performing regular to packed crowds, to the point that I questioned when he has a sit-down with his college dean about quitting school to tend to the ailing Melissa, I was shocked he was still attending school at all. Isn’t he just a successful musician now? My opening impression of Jeremy as he goes off to college is positive, as he calms down his impaired little brother who is bereft with the departure. Then over the opening credits he’s playing his acoustic guitar on a charter bus and I thought how rude that would be. But by far the most amusing part of the movie is the love triangle between Jeremy, Melissa, and Jean Luc. First off, every time a character says the name “Jean Luc” with such seriousness I giggled. The actor seems so much older than everyone else, though he’s only two years older than Robertson (who is 7 years older than Apa). The love triangle is enough to keep Melissa from being public about dating Jeremy, and when he presses her on it, she pushes back that he should return the jacket that Jean Luc gave him, as if these are equivalent. And then she keeps bringing it up. Jean Luc isn’t even a character so much as a platform of opportunity for Jeremy and then a contrived obstacle for their blooming romance.
The acting overall falls into that earnest yet occasionally goofy territory of many Christian indies. It’s not quite camp but there are moments where characters are so serious that things feel a tad off, like we’re just seconds away from everyone breaking into laughter. Apa (Riverdale) is blandly appealing but feels very much like Zac Efron lite. He does all his own singing and guitar playing which is more technically impressive than the character he has been given. Robertson showed such promise with 2015’s Tomorrowland and seems to be given little to do here. She’s slated in that dewy role as the Wise Woman Fated For Tragedy, which is kind of like the more somber terminal illness equivalent of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Even in her last moments, she seems to have a radiance of knowledge. I wish I could say there was strong chemistry between the leads but Apa has better chemistry with his guitar. Then there are Jeremy’s parents played by Gary Sinise and, surprise surprise, recording star Shania Twain. This is only her third film appearance and she is given so little to do that, frankly, it didn’t impress me much. The best performance in the film happens late when Jeremy meets a fan (Abigail Cowen) who monologues what Jeremy’s songs and experiences have met to her and how they’ve changed her life. It’s a moment that feels emotionally affecting even if you know it’s here to literally remind the audience of the theme. That same woman would then go on to become Jeremy’s wife, so good for them.
I Still Believe isn’t offensively bad, campy, or even theologically misguided in its view of morality like a hokey Kirk Cameron vehicle. It feels like a glossy made-for-TV movie that just happens to be made for a majority-Christian audience. The message is paramount, and all else serves the message, which means the characters are uninteresting, the story is redundant to the point of piling on cruelty, and the overall earnest tone can approach unintentional goofiness. It feels like much of the film is padding the running time with lengthy musical performances like a concert movie. It’s also a movie without enough story to cover its near two-hour length. Either you connect with the overall message that there can be meaning in suffering or you see past it and take umbrage with the movie presenting a woman’s suffering as character development for a soon-to-be popular musician. This is like a Christian weepie version of The Fault in Our Stars, which was another movie we knew where it would be headed, but it lacks the effort level. The Erwin brothers shoot everything either with annoyingly distracting handheld camerawork or swooping drone footage. The film has technical merit but filmed like it’s a collection of B-roll for some prescription drug ad (all those smiling, warmly lit faces on the beach having fun). I Still Believe is a blandly dull movie built upon extended suffering and extended musical performances. Maybe it knows its audience too well but I doubt anyone outside the flock will find inspiration here.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Beautifully Broken (2018)
Written by a staggering six credited writers, the faith-based movie Beautifully Broken is a well-meaning dramatic exercise that hopefully opens some hearts and minds to the refugee experience. Its message, for the most part, is worthy and empathetic. Reportedly based on a true story, we follow three families: 1) a Rwandan family that escapes the 1994 genocide, is trapped in the bureaucracy of the refugee system, and whose husband tries to make a new life in Tennessee for his family, 2) A Rwandan man who helped the previous family and has been imprisoned ever since, denied watching his own daughter grow into a teenager, 3) a wealthy Tennessee family struggles to cope with their rebellious teenage daughter, ignorant to the rape that changed her life. Can you guess which of these three storylines just isn’t as interesting as the others and yet is the one we inexplicably get the most time with? If you guessed “rich white people,” collect your prize. Beautifully Broken feels like an entire season of soap operas crammed into 108 minutes. The drama is so pitched but also strangely abbreviated, quick to resolution a few scenes later. It reminded me of those “previously on” clip packages before TV episodes. The characters are lacking recognizable dimension. They feel entirely too much like parts, meant to be happy, sad, and grateful, but rarely human. It makes for a dramatic feature that feels very inauthentic even when dealing with heavy issues like genocide, imprisonment, and sexual violence. Weirdly, the movie cannot even bring itself to utter the word “rape.” The film also feels written by people with a very selective sense of teenagers; some of the signs that the teen is on a wayward path that alarms mom and dad include her listening to rock music, locking her room for privacy, and, worst of all, not having an interest in horseback riding any longer. There’s a laughable subplot involving a bad boyfriend that seems like the most preposterous court case I’ve ever seen on film. Beautifully Broken examines the healing power of forgiveness and connection in a way that asks for compassion and understanding the immigrant experience. It even closes with a plea to sponsor a refugee to the U.S. Rarely do movies peak with their end credits. It just so happens that Beautifully Broken, a well-meaning but tedious tale, is that movie.
Nate’s Grade: C
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The Shack (2017)
When it comes to faith-based movies, especially those based on best-selling books, you know that they’re going to be preaching to the choir and more determined to give its intended audience the message it wants first; everything else is secondary. With The Shack, I got the start of an interesting film scenario and then it became the most boring, laborious, and theologically trite Ted Talk ever. I was fighting to stay awake and it was a battle that I was losing. The opening twenty minutes presents a story with dramatic possibility: Mack (Sam Worthington) is a family man who is grieving the loss of his youngest daughter. On a camping trip, she was abducted by a pedophilic murderer and killed in a shack in the woods. Mack is a shell of himself and his family doesn’t know how to reach him. He gets a mysterious invitation from “Papa,” his wife’s nickname for God, inviting him to the murder shack. So far so good. There’s even a fairly interesting back-story for Mack about his alcoholic and abusive father. Young Mack eventually poisoned his bad dad’s drinks with hazardous chemicals to protect he and his mother. However, all remote sense of entertainment is snuffed out once Mack enters the confines of the titular shack. Inside are human avatars for the Holy Trinity of Christianity, with Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer serving as a homespun “Papa.” The next 100 minutes is a series of talk show interview segments with each person to engage in full on flimsy spiritual psycho-babble to explain why God lets bad things happen and forgiveness is key. The movie stops being a dialogue and becomes a lecture series, and each one just kept going on and on. The characters stop being characters and become different mouthpieces for the spiritual cliches. It’s like the filmmakers threw up their hands and gave up. This is not a movie. It’s a inspirational exam told by the most cloying professors. The lessons learned feel trite (who are you to judge, God is with you through good times and bad) and the movie curiously leaves a lot of dramatic implications unresolved. Did Mack kill his father with the poisoned drink? Did this killer pedophile ever get caught, and if not doesn’t that mean other children are at risk? It’s like once Mack enters that mystical murder cabin, the movie loses any sense of structure, pacing, stakes, and dramatic propulsion, and that’s before the silly race across the water with Jesus. I would also say Worthington (Avatar) is not the best choice as the lead actor due to his limited dramatic range and growl-pitched voice. Other movies have dealt with heavy loss but rarely has one felt so detached from making that loss personable and empathetic. The Shack is a maudlin fable that wants to make people feel good even during the dark times. That’s admirable but it doesn’t make this 135-minute sermon any more of a worthwhile movie to watch.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Silence (2016)
A nearly three-hour movie about Portuguese Jesuit priests facing persecution in 17th century Japan and struggling with the personal demands and costs of their faith sounds like a hard sell for your casual moviegoer. It may seem even stranger coming from the likes of director Martin Scorsese. This is a deeply personal film and perhaps the greatest movie about the nature of spiritual faith, both good and bad, I’ve seen. Two priests (Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver) sail to Japan in 1635 to find their mentor after hearing he has renounced his ties to Christianity and taken up a Japanese wife. Christianity has been outlawed and those caught practicing the religion can be turned in for 100 pieces of silver, and a priest for 300 pieces. The repression forces Christian converts to make difficult choices, especially when their refusal to recant their faith causes suffering for others. The Inquisitor (Issei Ogata) is a fascinating figure who argues that these misplaced missionaries never understood Japanese culture and that this foreign religion simply cannot flourish. The meaning of individual faith is explored beautifully with existential highs and lows. When the priests come across a village of secretly practicing Christians, it’s a powerful example of the goodness of faith, as these people are nourished body and soul, empowered. They can also finally confess their sins and garner a clean slate. However, much of the film is about the internal struggle to retain one’s faith in the seeming absence of confirmation. The priests are eventually caught and ordered to apostate, and their ongoing refusals are met with harder and harder challenges to bear. It’s an ongoing process for many people to square the concepts of a loving God and the horrors and general torment that do not merit said God’s intervention. At one point one of our priests, shaken by his experiences, asks if he is merely praying to silence. In some regard, I think the movie is about coming to terms with the fact that faith is often a relationship with a silent partner. Silence may be the greatest spiritual epic about doubt. It feels like a thriller at times and also the most Christian movie at other times. It puts the simplistic tripe starring the likes of Kirk Cameron to shame. Scorsese’s camera is unmistakably his and the movie is often dazzling to just experience. The pacing is very much a slow burn but the historical context felt increasingly intriguing for my tastes. Ogata is the real star of the movie, embellishing his antagonist with a magnetic power. Every time he was off screen I wished for his return. Silence is not going to be a movie for everyone or for many. It’s too long and airless, but it’s a deeply serious, deeply meditative, and deeply searching film about the power of belief and the price we pay to hold on.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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