God's Not Dead
0/4
Starring: Shane Harper, Kevin Sorbo, Cory Oliver, Hadeel Sittu, Trisha LaFache, David A.R. White, Benjamin Ochieng
Rated PG for Thematic Material, Brief Violence and an Accident Scene
CONTAINS A MINOR SPOILER!
I am a difficult guy to offend. Perhaps it's because I have a "glass is half full" point of view when it comes to movies, but there are very few films that have angered me or made me uncomfortable simply because of their content. Thankfully, movies like "God's Not Dead" don't come along very often.
The idea behind "God's Not Dead" is a great concept: a college student has to prove that God exists to his atheist philosophy professor. Unfortunately, director Harold Cronk tanks the film by trivializing thoughtful and complex issues and using thin character types as avenues to explore them. Cronk is only interested in one thing: preaching to the converted.
Josh (Harper) is an incoming freshman to an unnamed university. As an elective, he chooses Intro to Philosophy. The student who registers him, seeing his cross, tells him to choose another professor. But since that would change his entire schedule, he decides to go ahead. There's a reason why he was warned: Professor Radisson (Sorbo) is a radical atheist who, on the first day of class, forces his class to write that "God is Dead" on a sheet of paper and sign it. Josh refuses due to his faith, and Radisson tells him that he can drop the class or sacrifice a third of his grade. Josh suggests that he try and prove that God exists and let the class decide. There are also other characters in play: a liberal reporter named Amy (LaFache) faces a cancer diagnosis and Aiysha, a girl from a Muslim family (Sittu) hides her Christian faith from her family.
It is not the film's point of view that offends me. A lot of people, myself included, believe in a higher power of some sort. What offends me is how it treats the issues it raises and the characters we follow through the film. For example, the characters are completely divided: all the non-believers are jerks while all Christians are saintly. Take Amy for example. When interviewing Willie and Korie Robertson (appearing as themselves), she identifies herself as being from a left-wing newspaper and is super snotty towards them. Or in the film's most reprehensible storyline, Ayisha is forced to wear a scarf by her traditionalist father. And when he finds out that she's secretly a Christian, he beats her then throws her out of the house (adding insult to injury, this occurs during a really sappy pop song).
There are some nice performances, particularly by Shane Harper and Kevin Sorbo, but in service of what? They don't have any real characters to play. They're props in the service of the message. Sorbo's case is particularly sad. He does a good job of getting us to hate him and presents a worthy antagonist, but his character is so over-the-top that he's never credible (at one point he tracks down and threatens Josh...that's okay for a thriller, but not in a drama like this). No college or university would hire a man this divisive, much less allow him to force his students to sign a paper saying that "God is Dead" or risk their academic careers.
As if that weren't bad enough, the film shoots itself in the foot by when making its own argument. The science that Josh cites in his argument is faulty, and hardly five minutes goes by without someone uttering a Bible verse. This kills much of the film's dramatic tension.
And while the concert at the end, which is where everyone ends up (except one), has some good music, it lasts too long, and the fact that their tour shares the same title as the film and one of their albums makes the film come perilously close to an advertisement for the band. Willie Robertson makes another appearance at the concert that also reeks of ego, and the text at the end that illustrates how Christians are persecuted on college campuses is offensive due to the context in which it is presented. Persecution prevalent for all religious beliefs, but making a movie like this is not going help solve the problem.
I don't bash movies for their views. I liked "Hardflip," another Christian film, and I found validity in "Unthinkable," despite disagreeing with it. The difference is that those films used real characters and thought to explain their position. "God's Not Dead" simply preaches.
Starring: Shane Harper, Kevin Sorbo, Cory Oliver, Hadeel Sittu, Trisha LaFache, David A.R. White, Benjamin Ochieng
Rated PG for Thematic Material, Brief Violence and an Accident Scene
CONTAINS A MINOR SPOILER!
I am a difficult guy to offend. Perhaps it's because I have a "glass is half full" point of view when it comes to movies, but there are very few films that have angered me or made me uncomfortable simply because of their content. Thankfully, movies like "God's Not Dead" don't come along very often.
The idea behind "God's Not Dead" is a great concept: a college student has to prove that God exists to his atheist philosophy professor. Unfortunately, director Harold Cronk tanks the film by trivializing thoughtful and complex issues and using thin character types as avenues to explore them. Cronk is only interested in one thing: preaching to the converted.
Josh (Harper) is an incoming freshman to an unnamed university. As an elective, he chooses Intro to Philosophy. The student who registers him, seeing his cross, tells him to choose another professor. But since that would change his entire schedule, he decides to go ahead. There's a reason why he was warned: Professor Radisson (Sorbo) is a radical atheist who, on the first day of class, forces his class to write that "God is Dead" on a sheet of paper and sign it. Josh refuses due to his faith, and Radisson tells him that he can drop the class or sacrifice a third of his grade. Josh suggests that he try and prove that God exists and let the class decide. There are also other characters in play: a liberal reporter named Amy (LaFache) faces a cancer diagnosis and Aiysha, a girl from a Muslim family (Sittu) hides her Christian faith from her family.
It is not the film's point of view that offends me. A lot of people, myself included, believe in a higher power of some sort. What offends me is how it treats the issues it raises and the characters we follow through the film. For example, the characters are completely divided: all the non-believers are jerks while all Christians are saintly. Take Amy for example. When interviewing Willie and Korie Robertson (appearing as themselves), she identifies herself as being from a left-wing newspaper and is super snotty towards them. Or in the film's most reprehensible storyline, Ayisha is forced to wear a scarf by her traditionalist father. And when he finds out that she's secretly a Christian, he beats her then throws her out of the house (adding insult to injury, this occurs during a really sappy pop song).
There are some nice performances, particularly by Shane Harper and Kevin Sorbo, but in service of what? They don't have any real characters to play. They're props in the service of the message. Sorbo's case is particularly sad. He does a good job of getting us to hate him and presents a worthy antagonist, but his character is so over-the-top that he's never credible (at one point he tracks down and threatens Josh...that's okay for a thriller, but not in a drama like this). No college or university would hire a man this divisive, much less allow him to force his students to sign a paper saying that "God is Dead" or risk their academic careers.
As if that weren't bad enough, the film shoots itself in the foot by when making its own argument. The science that Josh cites in his argument is faulty, and hardly five minutes goes by without someone uttering a Bible verse. This kills much of the film's dramatic tension.
And while the concert at the end, which is where everyone ends up (except one), has some good music, it lasts too long, and the fact that their tour shares the same title as the film and one of their albums makes the film come perilously close to an advertisement for the band. Willie Robertson makes another appearance at the concert that also reeks of ego, and the text at the end that illustrates how Christians are persecuted on college campuses is offensive due to the context in which it is presented. Persecution prevalent for all religious beliefs, but making a movie like this is not going help solve the problem.
I don't bash movies for their views. I liked "Hardflip," another Christian film, and I found validity in "Unthinkable," despite disagreeing with it. The difference is that those films used real characters and thought to explain their position. "God's Not Dead" simply preaches.
Comments
Post a Comment