The Calling

The movie captured the way things were back then. The Actors did a wonderful job, Faye Dunaway was a GREAT Mae West. Robert Wagner gives one of his best performances. Brad Dourif shows why he's one of the most sought after actors in the business. Ricco Chapa is a natural born actor. Leroy Jenkins is a one of a kind but Damian playing the Rev brought back memories of when I was a kid. My parents would load up the car and haul all of us kids to the tent meeting in Indiana.

If you grew up listening to Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, or Leroy Jenkins I think you'll find this movie is a trip back in time.

I've seen the movie twice.

Many years ago, God led me to go to Greenville S. C. but I did not know why. I returned back to Tennessee & told everyone that I would soon return to Greenville S. C. but I didn't know why or when. I rented this movie without knowing who it was about and without ever hearing about Leroy Jenkins. In the movie, he severely injures his arm & is divinely healed. At the time, I had been suffering greatly from unexplained severe arm pain for an entire year. In the movie, towns in South Carolina were mentioned. I had to learn more about Rev. Jenkins. So I looked online after watching the movie & discovered that he was going to hold a healing crusade in Greenville S.C. in only 2 weeks. So I returned to Greenville knowing that I would be healed. And sure enough, without Rev. Jenkins ever speaking directly to me and without him laying hands on me, as soon as he passed by me, I felt energy running through my arm & I was instantly healed. I was also divinely delivered cigarette addiction during that same crusade. Many other people at the crusade threw down their illegal drugs and were instantly delivered. This movie was very good and very different from other Christian movies. In the bible, the men of God were persecuted & hated, not loved by millions and not embraced by millions. This true life story movie shows how that the current men of God are also hated & persecuted.

The lord gave me a near fatal paper cut for reading Michael Chriton's Congo. While in the hospital hoping the lord and his doctors could save my finger I found this on the television. After 2 hours of the droning voice overs, sparsely dressed sets and so much gibberish I fell asleep. Fours days later the paper cut was healed! Praise him!! After that I dedicated my life to selling nonsense to idiots. Someday if I make enough money for the lord I hope he'll tell me what sins he was holding over Faye Dunaway and Brad Dourif that they had to pick up that paycheck.

I am pleased to see the lord has blessed the director with a background role in an ignored Woody Allen film.

Damian Chapa is not a bad filmmaker. He'll never make the big leagues, but he can at least cut something resembling a coherent movie together.

The problem is his subject matter.

Take what you will from the glassy-eyed converts and apologists who've reviewed the film her before me. I mean, they've BEEN to Leroy's tent shows, and they've SEEN those miracles, so THEREFORE, LeRoy's the real deal. Preaching to the choir, don't you think?

LeRoy, like ALL other miracle worker, will never allow his conjuring tricks to be independently verified, and even if he did, religion gives him and his sad, deluded followers and easy out: if you're skeptical, or you just don't believe in the miracles, then YOU don't have strong enough faith. YOU are the problem. YOU don't believe in God. This is why these FRAUD artists continue to thrive after many of them were long ago exposed as frauds; there's always people out there who FEAR. They need liberation from that FEAR. Miracles make the liberation "offered" by CON MEN like LeRoy all the more convincing to the credulous FOLLOWERS who have been taught, for most if not all of their lives, to work toward their big reward in the afterlife. That involves study and repeated RE-interpretation of ancient texts for modern times for which they were not written, adherence to arcane rituals, near-constant reenforcement of received "wisdom" and plain and simple FEAR of not attaining the afterlife. Failure IS an option, because we're all human after all, but some people are DESPERATE to be good little lambs to they can get into heaven. That's where LeRoy and his kind come in, especially when there are old and sick people to be fleeced out of money that would be better offered to non-religious charities, or to that "evil" medical profession that ACTUALLY HEALS PEOPLE. LeRoy Jenkins ONLY heals people who have convinced THEMSELVES that he needs healing.

You can't be a member of an evangelist's congregation and truly know the tricks he's playing on you. But work behind the scenes, where they tip off the preacher to the gullible marks in the audience and then count up all the dough backstage, and you'll see what it's really about.

Damian Chapa must have been in the congregation.

He bought the dog and pony show hook, line and sinker. And now he's transferred it to film, and he's proved as credulous in his writing and directing as LeRoy's audiences are at the healer's performances.

This is a film made and sold to the choir as it were. I found it in the junk bin at a local Hollywood video store (where it was TRADED IN, never rented) for $3 and simply HAD to pick it up, as I get a real kick out of bizarre religious films and the people who both make and watch them. THE CALLING is no better than ridiculous Cloud Ten drive-in schlock like LEFT BEHIND and TRIBULATION FORCE and that other piece of junk with Jeff Fahey. Hell, MOST of the actors in these things DON"T actually believe the scenarios they're acting out - they just need a paycheck because the mainstream won't hire them anymore (dig deep and you'll find plenty of interviews attesting to this). In other words, Damian Chapa can look forward to a career alternating between telemovies for TBN and straight-to-video Latino productions with which he's become associated. Sad. He wasn't a bad actor before he started wearing his faith on his sleeve.

Dunaway's horrid in this. She's not playing Mae West. She's playing a Mae West impersonator, while the casting of Brad Dourif as the infamous shyster A. A. Allen is almost perverse in its ingenuity. Dourif's not bad, but you can almost taste Dourif's desire to play the character as the scumbag he was in real life. And of course, there's the plentiful scenes of miracles and healings, recreated via modest special effects and camera trickery, EXACTLY the kind LeRoy uses in real life! Score one for Damian on that count.

At least TWO of the three reviewers at IMDb as I write this, have NO OTHER REVIEWS on the entire site. The third is obviously a fan-girl who has at least seen a few other Damian Chapa films, but thinks he should be nominated for most of them.

Believe who you want. Believe WHAT you want. But ask yourself why people like LeRoy, and his loyal trained seals like Damian don't WANT to allow any outsiders and "non-believers" to properly investigate the joyous magic they've experienced. To them, of course it would prove nothing, since they BELIEEEEEVE in things that don't NEED to be proved. Any attempt to disprove the magic is an affront to LeRoy and therefore and affront to God. Amen, brother!

I couldn't wait to see this movie. I had seen some previews which stirred my curiosity. I hoped some questions would be answered, like when Jenkins says the Spirit loves us but he's as mean as fire--or something of that nature. I wanted to get the background on that comment, but the movie offered no further insight. All in all though I found the film captivating, despite my having very little use and patience for so many films made today. I was especially touched by the prison scenes and the revealing depictions of Jenkins with his family. . .just all of the human elements.

Like someone else said, I would like to have seen more even if it meant parts 2 and 3. There were just so many important aspects that shape the story; they were kind of crammed into the too small space of 2 hours (or whatever the length was.)Actually, probably, what I would have rather seen is more of a documentary. Now THAT would be my cup of tea.