God's Club

For some reason this was on Netflix and for some other reason my lady decided we should watch it so we could have a laugh at the expense of discount God's Not Dead. And make no mistake when I write those words, don't take it lightly, people: this is *discount* God's Not Dead. In every way shape and form this is about some alternate reality called Super-Scaredy-Cat-Christian-Pants land where the filmmakers see Christians as oppressed and all atheists as hard-headed scumbags who want to stop all of these good-hearted (sometimes, as in this case, seemingly broken) people from just practicing their religion in schools or colleges or who knows what else!

I mean, come on, people!

The problem here is that this has Stephen Baldwin. Let that also sink in: Stephen Baldwin, who has the voice of brother Alec, but his face looks like it's been run over by several angry water-buffalo and reconfigured to have the same expression all the time - even post car accident scene where character's wife dies in one of those goofy car accidents with him saying "my love" and "babe" in unconvincing ways - and he is the lead in this story that's supposed to be some inspiration pap about him overcoming his wife's death by setting up an *afterschool* Bible club. And the problem is.... huh? Oh, yeah, there's a couple of high schoolers who want to mess with the guy by making up some stuff in the Bible club, and then one guy (who you know is meant to be sexy to Baldwin's daughter because, oh God, his HAIR man!) who's father with the glued-on beard(!) is all against them because... FAITH MAN!

The conflicts here are wholly unconvincing - maybe also HOLY unconvincing too! Puns aside, this is such bland material, all acted and meant to be with sincerity, but it's badly performed and written and directed with a taste for dumb montages showing, uh, jogging, and, again I must stress here, STEPHEN BALDWIN! I think I could let his less than one dimensional character/performance go if there was something else to latch on to, some actor or person with a heart-beat with some craziness or personality or screen presence (i.e. God's Not Dead, much as that is an insulting mess, has Kevin Sorbo who makes the antagonist someone to reckon with). Here everything is so soft and safe but it's nevertheless a piece of tripe on just its filmmaking - even if you agree with this message (with, well, should I argue with that, we'd be here all night), the actual *cinema* part of it, that it's a 90 minute filmed piece of entertainment, fails on those grounds.

I frankly couldn't even finish this, so I can't tell you how it ends. If you get to a product like God's Club and it flatlines at minute one, odds are good it won't get a heartbeat. And lo and behold, this was unable to resuscitate even as a fun-bad movie. It's just... boring.

All atheists are evil, mean spirited jerks! Christians are being persecuted! Obviously whoever wrote this doesn't know any atheists, or at least doesn't understand the argument for keeping religion out of school. This movie is grasping at straws to make atheists look bad, but it is so preposterous...attempted murder at one point!? Cmon. Let me put it this way, as an Atheist I would side with Stephen Baldwin's character in this film. I would defend him and support him. Because we're fine with you having a moment of silence for your dead wife. We're fine with an extracurricular club that is optional. We would not order our children to not date the children of Christians. We would not insult a man's dead wife. We would not tolerate our children vandalizing public or private property. I would not tell my kid he can't read the Bible, if for no other reason he should know why his mom and dad don't agree with the inconsistencies and supposed truths inside. We would not pick street fights with christians.

The movie itself is bland. Baldwin is monotone, the evil characters are two dimensional. Corbin Bernson is okay for the most part. And who designed the logo of the Gods Club. The thumb on the hand is upside down! Did a kid design it?

The plot is predictable and the writing is just bad. I've seen a few Christian movies and this was definitely the most boring.

If you go through life attending prayer meetings, joining bible circles, "liking" the bible on social media, AND going to church every Sunday while looking for non-offensive things to be offended over ... well then this movie is for you. You'll completely enjoy the unrealistic scenario that doesn't ever happen and the over the top characterizations of the evil antagonists that, in reality, just think you shouldn't shove your religion down their throats or interject it into public education at the expense of the tax payer.

All in all there was a clear lack of character development with characters that were already as vanilla as vanilla can be. They started out "unquestionably" right, didn't need to learn a thing, and ended "unquestionably right". The plot was transparent with the title and there were no surprises. The story was linear with no surprises, no excitement, no real drama. The acting was what you would expect from a "family friendly" cable channel's "special presentation". And personally ... there were far too many "shoulder to shoulder, on the stairs, heart to heart" talks.

All in all I just have one description of the film to encompass everything from the writing down to final edit.

Lazy.

There is a base that swallows this garbage with a smile. It doesn't have to be good in any way. It just has to feed into their world view. They'll buy it, they'll watch it, and they'll make the rounds on Netflix, IMDb, Amazon, or anywhere else to give it maximum stars and glowing reviews. Not because it was any good, but because it justifies their ignorance and enforces their belief that they're persecuted when they hear bogus stories of prayer being banned in school.

I have nothing against Christianity or the idea of Christian movies but the plot is so horribly unrealistic and exaggerated. This is nothing more then Christian propaganda. This movie is perfect if you're a Christian and for some reason feel like Christians are oppressed and discriminated against, if you are a normal person then you will quickly become frustrated at the terrible acting and laughably bad plot.

Let me start with a brief summary: Christians start something harmless and Atheists go up in arms. This is the basic foundations for the movie and it has been repeated time and time again. As an atheist, I am extremely offended by this movie and the way they represent atheists. Literally, EVERY atheist character in this movie is intolerant, hateful, and (of course) evil. This is in no way a representation of the real world, even though this movie makes it seem like its happened before. Anyways enough ranting, what about the ACTUAL movie? Well, it also fails in that regard. The characters are flat and only one character really experiences change, and she was a minor character. The atheists respond to the Christian characters with complete and utter nonsense. The story isn't really compelling, it's mostly just a misrepresentation of a possible real life scenario.

This movie is one of those Christian propaganda pieces that fails to be a remotely good movie. The story is uninteresting and not compelling whatsoever, the characters are cardboard thin and predictable, and this is only topped by the unbelievable amount of bias towards Christians.