Six: The Mark Unleashed

I saw Six The Mark Unleashed tonight. It wasn't too bad. It was too preachy and it had some places where it didn't follow logically but hey, for an ultra-low budget movie I've seen a LOT worse. It's definitely WAY above Asylum grade.

I am a Christian and I very much support independent Christian cinema. I am also a Sci Fi nut. I enjoyed an attempt to merge the two.

Did it succeed? Not exactly, but then it didn't really fail either. I think a higher budget would really have helped. There really weren't any special effects. Just a bit of cool CGI stuff would have helped with the suspension of disbelief. They also were too heavy handed with the scriptures and it was disappointing that they didn't have any good people except Born Again Protestants. They didn't have any Catholics, Jews, Muslims, etc.

With such recognizable stars as Stephen Baldwin and Eric Roberts in it, Six, The Mark Unleashed has quite a bit more production values in it than you normally get from a Christian film. Note the producer is Paul Crouch, Jr. of the Crouch family of Trinity Broadcasting Network so it's not like they're short of funds.

The creative end of this film is Kevin Downes and David A.R. White who are the Ben Affleck and Matt Damon of the Christian film world. Note their respective credits, you'll find it almost exclusively in that genre.

Both of these two are getting a little old to be playing juveniles although Downes has quite the baby face, just like Matt Damon. They're a couple of petty criminals who get caught with some stolen items, but more important than that, they're caught with a counterfeit mark. The mark of course is the mark of the anti-Christ and it's a computer chip planted for thought control. That's an automatic death sentence.

In prison they're tossed in with Jeffrey Dean Morgan who neither buys into the thought control of the world 'Leader' who's come to power or with the Christian apocalyptic theology. He's a former cop and that makes him a good candidate to infiltrate the Christians and kill a new 'prophet' with the shegetz name of Elijah Cohen. Morgan's ex-wife Amy Moon dreamed up this assignment. Morgan escapes with White and Downes who has now become a believer. The rest of the film is what happens to the three of them.

Baldwin and Roberts lend their names to this project in strictly minor roles for box office. Usually these films immediately go to the Christian television circuit with a limited if any kind of run on the big screen.

If you're a believer this film is better than average, if you're not the story will be silly and trite. Reviews for these kind of films are wasted because the audience is a built in one, dictated by religious beliefs. Kind of like a Star Trek movie in that way.

or faith. a film with, at the first sigh, a very precise target. and this fact impose to ignore the artistic value or the presence of Eric Roberts and Stephen Baldwin. the warning about the anti-Christ mark, control of masses, the fight for freedom, the way of Damascus and the links between very different men. nothing original. but, in same measure, it is more than a religious film. its political message could be, for a part of public, more important. because it is the illustration of the old war between state and citizens. sure, not used in the right manner but useful for serve the idea. the conspiracy theories, the fear about the last days, the need of hope, the memories about lines from the book of Apocalypse. each is part of the idea who defines this film.

Of course some people think this movie was stupid...to me..I loved it.

"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." - 1 Corinthians 2:14

The movie had much more to offer than most of the other movies out there. This had content that spoke to my soul as truth. There was some real truth about redemption and forgiveness.

I'm curious to know how many of the actors were Christian? I also think that Stephen Baldwin has improved on his acting skills. I've also seen Eric Roberts in other movies with Christian content.

I saw this at the 2004 Greater Orlando Christian Film Festival. Most Christian movies have a well-earned reputation of being terrible on just about every level from acting to directing to writing to production. They look like your average church youth group with a dv camera ran out and shot a movie. As such I was braced for more of the same but Six (not sure why it is named that) actually is a cut above normal Christian films. The writing, while not always the smartest, definitely keeps you guessing what will happen next. I had some issues with things that didn't make a lot of sense, such as why in a prison where they are executing prisoners if they don't convert to the antichrist, they are allowing the inmates to have Bible studies and write Bible verses all over the walls. It seems contradictory at best. Also the backstory is given short shrift as to how or why the Leader came to power. There is some mentioning of purges and that's about it. Other issues have to do with things that happen for no apparent reason. Like there is a character that recalls how he got saved. So we see him driving his car along a road mocking a large group of people that are walking for some inexplicable reason to some unexplained or unrevealed destination, and then he gets yanked out of the car and beat up. This scene has no context. Just because it is a flashback does not mean that within the flashback, context is optional. So that's the bad, or what I can remember of it. Now for the good. Six has some of the best acting that I have seen in a Christian film, notably on the part of Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Tom Newman. He delivers his lines in a nice deadpan way and never goes over the top. Stephen Baldwin(!) has a great turn as the prophetic Luke. Baldwin puts that menacingly creepy little whisper delivery that he used in The Usual Suspects to great effect here with his moments opposite Morgan. Writing, directing, and starring is Kevin Downes as Jerry the hacker. Downes does an admirable job and in all of these roles but is best at his ability to hold back the film from spiraling out of control into the realms of the ludicrous with his even direction. While it has a solid Christian thriller vibe, it doesn't ram the "you're going to hell" message down your throat. It's more complex than that and expects its audience to think critically. While not a big screen level of quality (this is to be excused because it isn't being made with a massive budget), the movie is definitely the equal of your normal made-for-tv fare. Firmly anchored if not always rock steady, Six is a film that you can watch and not be embarrassed with if you are a Christian. 3.5 stars of 5.