Overcome

This movie was a waste of 1.5hrs.

The things I've read about it being an "evangelical edit" of a mormon movie make perfect sense. There are no in-church scenes, no teaching moments and no discussion of who God is and what He expects.

I have to assume the aforementioned things were either in the mormon edition but would not have translated to an evangelical film, or they were never in the movie. Either way, this edition pretty much demonstrated that mormonism is not Christianity. For the Christian, repentance and faith in Christ is required. Reconciliation is sought because of a heart changed by Christ, and out of a desire to bring that change to others. The motivations of Colton's change were absent other than he just felt the life he had been leading was wrong. There was no discussion about why he really felt he needed to change. There was a lot of prayer, but no discussion on what the prayer was about or to whom.

Jaycee Lynn was almost believable. Colton went from the kid brother in "Sixteen Candles" to Wally Cleaver.

This film was devoid of any spiritual content. It seemed the filmmakers wanted to tell me something about changing my life... I'm just not certain what.

"Overcome" is the 'Evangelical Christian' edit of the 'Mormon' film "Turn Around". There are quite a few 'Mormon' films shot with two slightly different edits, and different titles to appeal to different faiths. It's actually a pretty good deal; very few lines are changed and the cost isn't increased much but the market is much broader. I for one don't mind this at all (I'm of the Evangelical Christian Persuasion) and prefer to hear 'pastor' to 'bishop' for example. If you doubt this, read the IMDb for "Turn Around". There is no doctorine other than general morality and forgiveness in this film which is the essentially the same in both faiths.

I've seen both. The film is quite good in either case.

I've been reviewing several films from Mormon film makers of late and for the most part I've noticed they are markedly better than the run of cinema from the evangelical churches. But in the case of Overcome this could easily have come from an evangelical denomination.

A cast of complete unknowns who've not done any other work are the ensemble for Overcome. In this completely Caucasian town where I counted one black face in a minor bit young Aaron Brown has grown away from the LDS church and he's a charismatic leader of a little group of high school bullies. They even graffiti an LDS temple.

Jaycee Lynn is a young girl who's a bit of a goody goody, but she's primarily focused on athletics, in her case tennis. These two know but really have no use for each other.

But as fate would have it one night, Brown is in a car wreck in a car driven by another one of his crew and the person in the other car in a head on collision was Lynn. Her knee gets wrecked putting her tennis future in jeopardy. As for Brown he nearly dies on the operating table in fact is pronounced and then miraculously comes back.

These things have happened and that they cause a behavioral change is understandable. There's a reference that the bishop makes to St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Well Brown doesn't become an evangelist, but he does start making amends for bad behavior, especially where Lynn is concerned.

This is so typical of Christian evangelical films not what I've come to expect from the LDS. Kids who are way too white bread that you never really believe are all that bad. Usually LDS films concentrate on their people living in the world, but making their own place in it. Here this little town seems to be something unto itself without any of the problems of America creeping in.

In fact it would have been more realistic from their point of view to have ended it with Brown becoming Elder Brown and going on a mission. I've learned enough to know in that world returned missionaries are a prize catch.

All in all Overcome is your typical church film that I would have expected from the Baptists more than the LDS.

The Gospel is not some self-help program where we have to make up for our past. The Gospel is not something we have to do. It is something that has already been done for us.

This movie is so ridiculously heavy handed and preachy. The dialog is ridiculous. There might have been a line in the movie somewhere that didn't sound completely artificial, but if there was I didn't hear it. It reminded me of a long, low quality public service announcement made by a local government channel. The characters are one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. The actors are not good, but you can't blame them too much, because the material they have to work with is so bad that they never had a chance. The plot must have been written by a home-schooled scriptwriter who imagined what actual high school must be like. There's nothing good about this movie. I know the creators thought they were trying to send a good message, but watching this movie just makes me want to punch someone. Don't waste your time.