Facing the Giants

On the way to this movie, our expectations were low. Extremely low. $100,000, a cast of non-actors, and being in the Christian entertainment genre does not generally make for a good movie.

We went because we had seen Flywheel, a TV movie by the same director. We flipped past it one day and ended up watching the whole thing. It had no budget to speak of, and it was overtly religious, but the directing was impressive, and the movie was engaging. At the time, my husband commented that the director was very talented and that he would be looking forward to seeing his future work.

Now his future work is here. We were surprised when we walked into a packed theater at the 4:00 matinee. The woman seated next to me said that she had also seen the movie the night before, and that the theater had been just as full. "But now I just realized that I forgot to bring a tissue," she warned. Oh great. It's going to be one of those Christian movies where everything is hokey, and everyone is crying all the time.

I'm a Christian too, but let's face it, the expectations we set for Christian entertainment are extremely low. Most contemporary Christian bands are horrible. Most contemporary Christian fiction, practically unreadable. And Christian movies? Usually very very bad..

Facing the Giants? Who would have thought that you could make a movie for $100,000 using people from your church as actors because you can't afford to hire anyone else, include overt and earnest religious themes, and end up with a movie that stands easily with its contemporaries out of Hollywood? I didn't think it was possible, but I was wrong. The movie is good, not just Christian entertainment "good," but regular movie good.

Is it religious? You bet. And it's not vaguely religious; it's straight-up Christian, born-again, have-you-accepted-Jesus? religious. I have never seen a movie that put itself out there in that way and succeeded, but this movie has. Part of what makes making Christian films hard is the reality of the medium. A guy can't sit on screen and pray or think about God in his head--he's got to express everything to the audience. This is part of the reason that most Christian entertainment is so painfully earnest, but it is unavoidable. It speaks to the tremendous talent of the director that he was able to incorporate these elements in a seamless, non-distracting way. It is downright baffling that he was able to do it with non-actors.

Is the movie predictable? Of course. This is a feel good family film. Being predictable is part of the genre. I only mention this at all because I have seen "predictability" noted as a criticism of this and other films. It's a lazy criticism leveled at films that the critic doesn't like. Predictability doesn't make a movie good or bad unless you're operating in twist-specific genres such as mysteries or suspense pictures. Quality of storytelling is the key.

And there is a bonus: kids love this film. There are no animated characters, no slapstick comedy, but the kids in the theater were on the edges of their seats.

The humor works. That's important and especially hard. Effectively directing comedy (real comedy--not the trite, everything-is-oh-so-ironic type) takes a special talent and a sterling sense of timing. Alex Kendrick has both. The humor is good natured, family friendly, and best of all, it's actually funny.

Why all the gushing about this film when I see so many movies every week and almost never blog about them? Because (1) this movie is better than most of the other films out right now, (2) this movie is amazing given the resources the filmmakers had to make it, (3) the marketing approach has been of the low-key Army of Davids sort, and (4) I've seen intellectually dishonest criticism of this film. It's perfectly fine for someone to say he doesn't like Christianity or doesn't like Christian themes in art; it's dishonest for the same man to shy away from saying the former and instead say that a well made film has been poorly done because he disagrees with the content.

A good movie and well worth the price of admission. I look forward to seeing more from Kendrick, and I hope that his movie marks the beginning of a new standard in Christian entertainment. Christians can make great movies about their faith and have no need to settle for anything less than real excellence. Kendrick has proven the theme of his own movie: with God, anything is possible.

UPDATE: Red State Conservative posts his review.