Six: The Mark Unleashed

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.

an useful film. for Christians and, in same measure, for the searcher of answers in crisis period. useful for discover a great problem in Christian circles debates and its solution. so, for large part of its viewers, the film is far to be a Sci. Fi. but a predictable script. as Greek Orthodox, I am not the fan of manner to present the problem - in Protestant way - but it could be one of forms for remind the prediction from New Testament. so, it is only a Protestant movie with its virtues and, for a part of public, its errors. a good movie for message. but it only presents but not has the ambition to convince. a film who reminds many black utopia but, in same measure , the word from Apocalypse. a film who reflects many social fears of last decades.

This movie is the secret love-child of a Jack T. Chick tract and one of those "heartwarming" Christian propaganda anecdotes that have been circulating on the internet since the nineties. You know, the ones in which a mean, cynical atheist makes fun of a poor, oppressed Christian using a pompous, verbose argument which sounds impressive because it contains big words, but doesn't actually make any sense, and gets his come-uppance when his "argument" is "refuted" by some emotive sound-bytes from the Christian.

There is in fact a scene exactly like this somewhere in the first half of the movie, which is all that I could endure before flipping to the end of the DVD to see if anything exciting happened. Nothing did.

As science-fiction, the movie is ludicrous and unbelievable. It sets up a completely implausible and illogical view of the future. Setting aside the gimmick of the "implant" (which has a powerful, magical effect on your *brain* in spite of being implanted in your *hand*), why is someone in a maximum security prison run by a society which apparently practices rigid censorship allowed to have a bible, supposedly a heretical work? Why are the prisoners allowed to decorate their cells with beautifully and neatly executed graffiti of biblical quotations? Where do they get their art supplies? How did the evil implanted stormtroopers manage to massacre huge numbers of people in armed attacks if they appear to value personal self-preservation above everything else, including *defending the very survival of their society*?

The evil society is simply not believable, because it is a caricature of everything that modern fundamentalist Christians disapprove of blended with symbolism from the Book of Revelations. Are we supposed to be disturbed by the drones because they are sexually promiscuous? With *gasp* partners of both sexes? Oh, noes! The horror! I bet they've also massacred half the planet!

If you are the sort of person who reads those chain letters and thinks "Oh wow, that is such a well-reasoned argument! Let me forward this to everyone in my address book!" then you will probably adore this movie. If you are the kind of person who thinks "Who sent me this crap *again*?", then I suggest you stay away.

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.

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.