Roger Hane

As a "live and let live" atheist, here's my opinion of the movie.

My interest in the movie is with its theological arguments. I didn't care about the boring family drama parts. But let me briefly address the movie itself. This movie isn't based on a script by a typical religious Christian screenwriter. It's based on a book with some New Age elements. But despite this, its production values are straight out of the Christian Direct-To-DVD genre. That certainly weakened its potential impact. Routine efforts all around. I can only single out Octavia Spencer for a standout performance.

So what about its theological arguments? I notice three main themes that I as an atheist disagree with and possibly religious Christians disagree with.

1. It's okay that God doesn't step in to intercede to stop injustices, and that innocent people suffer the effects of evil people's actions. 2. Evil people's actions are justified by their experiences earlier in life, because they're not capable of transcending those actions. 3. If you can forgive some people, then you must forgive all people.

As an atheist, I reject these ideas. And using their own reasoning, I think many religious Christians reject them, too. It's weird that by very different reasoning routes, atheists can agree with religious Christians about the film's message. And I don't see the Universalism in this movie that conservative Christians seem to see.

Religious Christians seem to object to the portrayal of the Trinity. I can understand that among the very conservative. But I don't care about the casting in this symbolic story. Mainstreamers and New Agers will enjoy it, but conservative Christians and we atheists will be dissatisfied. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing it again and skipping ahead to contemplate its theological scenes in depth.

Okay, I sat through the whole thing. Do I get an award? Do I get refunded for my time (though I paid nothing to see it)? I could go on and on about the faults of the movie, but other reviewers here have done an ample job of that. I just want to briefly vent about my disgust with it. I felt so bad for Sorbo for wasting his talent with it. I've never seen Duck Dynasty, but Robertson was fun to watch. He did a great job just by being himself. His few minutes on screen were the most tolerable of the movie. Occasional good performances can't begin to compensate for its over all awfulness. I had a strong feeling that the script was written by a 15 year old. Movie industry Christian evangelists will have to do infinitely better if they want to draw in the general public.

I came to this movie remembering what a horrible job D'Souza did with "2016: Obama's America." Being so biased from the start, I was very pleasantly surprised that this was a much higher quality production, regardless of its message. The editing, directing, videography, and acting in the reenactments were refreshingly good compared to "2016." I don't know who or what in the production team allowed them to retool D'Souza's technique, but they succeeded. What ever message he had to make, he made it more convincingly this time. Despite having to look at his condescending mug all the time.

We (meaning I) have to remember that he has not set out to give a balanced, unbiased view of the criticisms of American society. He's only out to give the right wing's perspective of the criticisms. After all, the right wing deserves to have its say in theaters, too. So he counters the left's criticisms by utilizing limited and selective facts to make his case. Maybe the left used its own limited and selective facts to begin with. So putting D'Souza's right wing perspective together with the left wing perspective of someone like Michael Moore, maybe we have something approaching the total picture. But it's unfortunate that we can't get a completely balanced presentation in one movie. Could it be that D'Souza and Moore are both correct simultaneously? The rhetorical battle makes my head spin.