There's a lot to say about this movie, which my mother foisted on me during a visit not long ago. I was embarrassed by and for this movie the entire time I watched, and it really was a frightening peek into the psyches of American evangelicals.
The movie centers around a football coach who ends up at a small Christian school. At least, I think it was a Christian school, because people here seemed to quote scripture for everything from pepping each other up to taking a leak. Anyway, the coach is really down on his luck; his car's no good, he can't get his wife pregnant, and he starts off with an 0 and 3 season. But, in one of the film's repeated and ENDLESS "prayer" scenes, the coach has a conversation with God and "turns it all over" to HIM with a capital "H." But don't get the idea that this is some wimpy, liberal God. The filmmakers are very careful about letting the viewer know that this is the Jesus kind of God. The football-game winnin' kind of God. And, after that, the film becomes dreadfully predictable, cheesy, schmaltzy, boring, formulaic and stupid.
If you are a thinking type of person, this film will do everything it can to insult your intelligence and treat you like the type of person who might voluntarily watch this movie.
Not to mention the dialogue, which sounds as if it were written by teenage boys who've read too many tracts and comic books. Or the acting; the actors look and perform as though they were recruited from the local Foursquare Baptist Church during an altar call. Or the plot, which plays out like every born again Christian's reality-spiting fantasy.
Grade: D+.
Things to watch for: The ENDLESS, badly-cut "Death crawl" scene; wife praying to have baby she can brainwash; opposing coach playing the "villain."
The movie centers around a football coach who ends up at a small Christian school. At least, I think it was a Christian school, because people here seemed to quote scripture for everything from pepping each other up to taking a leak. Anyway, the coach is really down on his luck; his car's no good, he can't get his wife pregnant, and he starts off with an 0 and 3 season. But, in one of the film's repeated and ENDLESS "prayer" scenes, the coach has a conversation with God and "turns it all over" to HIM with a capital "H." But don't get the idea that this is some wimpy, liberal God. The filmmakers are very careful about letting the viewer know that this is the Jesus kind of God. The football-game winnin' kind of God. And, after that, the film becomes dreadfully predictable, cheesy, schmaltzy, boring, formulaic and stupid.
If you are a thinking type of person, this film will do everything it can to insult your intelligence and treat you like the type of person who might voluntarily watch this movie.
Not to mention the dialogue, which sounds as if it were written by teenage boys who've read too many tracts and comic books. Or the acting; the actors look and perform as though they were recruited from the local Foursquare Baptist Church during an altar call. Or the plot, which plays out like every born again Christian's reality-spiting fantasy.
Grade: D+.
Things to watch for: The ENDLESS, badly-cut "Death crawl" scene; wife praying to have baby she can brainwash; opposing coach playing the "villain."