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WHTim -> RE: Facing The Giants (2/25/2008 12:30:39 PM)
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As a Christian, I appreciate the sentiment of what they were trying to do. With that said it just wasn't a very good film. The "acting" is amateur at best and the storyline has been done and redone all the way back to the Little Rascals in the 20s and 30s. Most notibly it was done (much better) in 1976 with "The Bad News Bears" and then in variations like the "Major League" and "Mighty Ducks" series and in smaller films such as "Little Giants", "the Replacements", "Possums" and on and on and on.
Here's a bit of what Christianity Today had to say about it:
"has its heart in the right place; there are good lessons here about honoring God in everything that we do, the importance of respect and leadership, and the power of prayer. Those are all things viewers could benefit from hearing. Whether they ever will hear them, though, is another matter—when a film is as unintentionally corny as this one, it's anyone's guess as to how many viewers can stomach all the schmaltz for the positive message at the end."
He's a bit of what Variety had to say about it:
"Technically polished but dramatically tepid, it might score in the niche market for Christian-themed entertainment. And yet, by preaching to the converted so heavy-handedly, the filmmakers fumble an opportunity to reach beyond their target demo of devout churchgoers......The complete lack of dramatic tension throughout "Facing the Giants" makes the thoroughly predictable pic seem much longer than it is. And while most of the performances are appealingly sincere, they seldom reach the level of community-theater proficiency. Even University of Georgia football coach Mark Richt is less than totally convincing while playing himself in a fleeting cameo."
Is this all that people of faith are capable of? A friend of mine said that seeing "Facing the Giants" is like going to your 6 year old's recital, the performance was terrible but you love him and appreciate that he's trying and proudly pat him on the head.
I think that our God is bigger than that and deserves better.
Last night "No Country For Old Men" won the best picture Oscar, an honor that it richly deserved. It was a profound film, extremely well acted (Javier Bardem also won best supporting actor) and made by a pair of the best filmmakers on the planet (Joel and Ethan Cohen who also won for best director). Why didn't a film created by people of faith win? Well, because there weren't any that deserved it and movies like "Facing the Giants" aren't helping.
I would submit that we make more movies like Robert Duvall's "The Apostle" an extremely uplifing and spiritual film that -surprise- the critics loved. In contrast to "Facing the Giants" 13% tomato meter, it has a 90% tomato meter.
Here's a bit of what Roger Ebert (you may have heard of him) said about it:
""The Apostle'' sees its characters in an unusually perceptive light; they have the complexity and spontaneity of people in a documentary. Duvall, who not only plays the preacher but also wrote and directed the film, has seen this preacher--named Eulis ``Sonny'' Dewey--with great attention and sympathy.
Sonny is different from most movie preachers. He's not a fraud, for one thing; Hollywood tilts toward the Elmer Gantry stereotype. Sonny has a one-on-one relationship with God, takes his work seriously, and in the movie's opening scene, the preacher pauses at an auto accident to ask one of the victims to accept Jesus Christ, ``who you're going to soon meet.'' Sonny is flawed, with a quick temper, but he's a good man, and the film is about his struggle back to redemption after his anger explodes."
Here's a bit of what the LA Times said about it:
" Any discussion of "The Apostle" inevitably comes back to its protagonist, to the way Duvall has created as complete a person as the screen allows, a man who can be discussed as fully as a flesh-and-blood acquaintance or even a close friend. It's an effortlessly complex portrayal that relishes the contradictions and complexities of someone capable of both exalted and debased behavior, a shape-shifter it is possible to be fascinated, repelled and compelled by, all at the same time."
I'm in no way knocking the spirit that made "Facing the Giants" I just think that we could and should do a lot better than that.
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