90 minutes au paradis

I don't believe in god, but do like to watch religious inspiring movies. Never normally disappointed until now.

90 minutes in Heaven. I am 17 minutes before the end, all I have wached is a poor guy, griping anway in his hospital bed, nothing about the possibility of heaven, nothing to giv me hope.

Then he attempts to get out of bed, has one crutch, his left leg has metal rods through it, his right leg he can barely hobble, whicch armpit supports his crutch? You would think his left, the side with the implants and the gammy leg,. No, he uses the crutch under his right armpit, the leg he can support weight.

He falls over. Suprise!

I was invited to see this premiere at The Fox in Atlanta, not sure why I was invited as everyone there was a pastor or a family member...the mayor was there, the whole cast and then there was my sister and I. I gave it a 3 because at least they're donating $ from the film to help orphanages (one in particular was there that night at the Fox)....and after the movie, what did all of these influential preachers and their family members do? Did they stop and befriend these obviously under-dressed orphans after the movie? While the kids were coming down the stairs in jeans and the best clothes they could put together.....did I see any of the obviously well and overdressed attendees actually try and mingle or minister to them.....on the contrary, the mass audience of "Christians" flocked to the open bars inside the fox to get a cocktail, while the orphans and their friends/family/acquaintances awkwardly, and hurriedly left. As for the movie, what I got from it was a guy who was in severe pain and couldn't be helped by modern medicine....this movie shows that you can get comfort from your church community...IF you belong to one. For those of us that don't, I guess we are on our own or have to rely on our own faith.

I will never understand what people expect from movies. When this beautiful film is made to touch anyone that has a heart and soul .Just perfect acting .Had me in tears .No I'm not a church goer or a bible basher .Just believe in good and my experience of life tells me that this message is good for us all .Keep the faith as God does indeed answer your prayers .. And watch this film, to the end with an open mind .

I have seen suffering like this and have been in the wife's shoes and this is very real. You have to understand the pastor's experience in heaven made his recovery more difficult (that might be a spoiler). His suffering was hard to watch but it was realistic. The spiritual struggle, financial trouble, and family trauma is just how it is. A near death experience, even without seeing heaven, makes you wish you had gone all the way, just to escape the suffering here and the suffering of dying again. It is honest and if you want to be prepared for tragedy here and heaven afterwards, it is worth the slow torture of watching this. It is better than doing yourself. The legal problems were also so true to life. Watch and learn and you might not have to live it. The last half hour is worth and since I see honesty throughout this film, I believe that is also likely the truth.

Don't be fooled by the title. There was nothing heavenly about this film. It's a corny, hokey, clichéd, dull, slow, and an inaccurate melodrama about a young minister, Don Piper (Hayden Christensen) who suffered traumatic injury in a car accident. The paramedics who arrive at the scene cannot find a pulse and leave him unattended awaiting a coroner.

Another minister caught in the resulting traffic jam enters the car and starts praying and singing, at which point he returns to life by joining in the hymn. He has been "dead" for 90 minutes. Now, it has happened that people who are being worked on with a defibrillator, etc., have come back after 90 minutes. But this guy was in a car with plastic over him.

Kate Bosworth plays the minister's wife, Eva, as if she had been heavily sedated. On the other hand, the minister is transferred to a hospital that allows him unlimited access to morphine so he is, in fact, heavily sedated. And about halfway through this 121 minutes of hell, you'll wish you were, too.

Unfortunately, Christensen's character is unlikeable as he slides into self-pity. When fireworks are going on outside, he says in his narration, those are the only fireworks left in our marriage now. He's been flat on his back in intractable pain -- I don't know what he expected.

The character is on an IV for 45 days+. He would have had a PIC line by then. Also, he's given no pain medication while they're trying to stimulate bone growth with a fixator, which is incredibly painful.

One other thing - of course the recovery is very expensive so at one point he is moved to a less expensive hospital. And all the staff becomes black. Low, producers, LOW.

The acting is uniformly bad with the exception of Fred Thompson, who comes off like John Barrymore compared to the rest of them. He offers him a milkshake - McDonald's obviously threw some money at this thing. They're everywhere.

As far as learning anything about the character's NDE, you won't, except for the last minutes of the film. Maybe heaven is worth the wait, but getting to this part of the film is not since you had to go through hell to get there. It's too little, too late.