When Willard and Rebecca Bean are called on a mission to a town that's hostile towards them, they must choose whether to fight for their right to live there or love their hostile neighbors.When Willard and Rebecca Bean are called on a mission to a town that's hostile towards them, they must choose whether to fight for their right to live there or love their hostile neighbors.When Willard and Rebecca Bean are called on a mission to a town that's hostile towards them, they must choose whether to fight for their right to live there or love their hostile neighbors.
David H. Stevens
- James Walsh
- (as David Stevens)
William 'Bus' Riley
- Tough Guy
- (as Bus Riley)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
My family and I loved it. Great story. Great music, story line, and actors. Great life lessons taught. A real feel-good movie. TC Christensen's best yet.
An LDS accomplished boxer & wife are sent on a mission from Utah to New York in 1915 to resurrect an LDS farm and acquire properties for the church. The area has "Book" historical importance as the place of battle between ancient Morman travelers to the New World (BCE) the Nephites & the Jaredites. Side note: Others maintain the site should be in ancient Central America. In Hollywood fashion our missionaries are saintly while the locals are gruff nasty-spirited haters of Mormonism, but in the end apple pie & good deeds wins them over. Successful they return to Salt Lake in 1939. Note: Not shown is that he divorces his first wife (two children) and marries a younger woman (four children). The writer director Christensen, also an LDS member, has done many promotional faith based, especially LDS, movies.
Great for leaning the value of living others despite differences
In his autobiography, Willard Bean wrote: "When people tell my story they usually get it about half right." This movie is an example of that; the screenwriter got it about half right. The sad thing is the parts he got wrong were deliberately wrong because the writer thought it would make a better story. The real, accurate story would have made a much better movie. Sadder still is that in interviews the writer presented his altered version as true and accurate.
Visually this movie is beautiful. Mr. Christensen is one of the best cinematopraphers working today. David McConnell does a very good job portraying Willard Bean, but unfortunately, he received some bad direction which made some of his scenes silly and eye-rolling.
If you like "Mormon movies", you'll love this one. It has some touching moments and some good lessons, and even a thinly disguised Three Nephites Story (which is so poorly put together it leaves the audience wondering what just happened). One of the ways the writer changed the true story was to create an a-little-child-shall-lead-them storyline. This is always good for a few tears whether it's true or not. Adding this storyline feels like an insult to Willard Bean's life and his true character, but it's a guaranteed Kleenex moment in any "Mormon movie".
Visually, I would give this movie 8 out of 10 stars. Unfortunately, Mr Christensen insists on being a one-man band who writes, directs, shoots and produces and I can't give the final product more than 4 out of 10 stars. Had this been a team effort with a good writer who stuck to the true story, and good director working with one of the industries great cinematographers, this could have been an outstanding movie.
One final note. Before you lump me in the category of Mormon hater, or disgruntled Latter-day Saint with a chip on his shoulder, I am neither of these. I am a devout Latter-day Saint with no ax to grind. I am simply giving an honest assessment of the movie.
"The Fighting Preacher" benefits from a slightly fresher style than other Mormon films of its kind and definitely shows more promising production value. Still, the performances are one-dimensional and the script is incredibly predictable.
It's a boring piece that feels just like the other propaganda stories of its kind and Mormon films still feel that its fair to predict "outsiders" as one-dimensional bullies that in order for them to become a decent person, they must convert to the religion.
I found the film to be generally poorly done considering the time it was released and felt that at this stage, there should be no excuses anymore to prevent Mormon cinema to reach a new standard. Unfortunately, the genre is trapped in a never ending "early saints" setting, determined to portray Mormons as perfectly kind hearted people being victimized by everyone in the country.
The main lead's performance is the only thing that grounds the film for me in some kind of reality. Unfortunately, everything else fails.
It's a boring piece that feels just like the other propaganda stories of its kind and Mormon films still feel that its fair to predict "outsiders" as one-dimensional bullies that in order for them to become a decent person, they must convert to the religion.
I found the film to be generally poorly done considering the time it was released and felt that at this stage, there should be no excuses anymore to prevent Mormon cinema to reach a new standard. Unfortunately, the genre is trapped in a never ending "early saints" setting, determined to portray Mormons as perfectly kind hearted people being victimized by everyone in the country.
The main lead's performance is the only thing that grounds the film for me in some kind of reality. Unfortunately, everything else fails.
Did you know
- TriviaAll boxing scenes were shot in the last two days of filming so if McConnell got "smashed in the face or whatever, we still got our film," Christensen joked.
- GoofsFour missionaries come to the house. Two are introduced as Elder Crawford Gates and Elder Gordon Hinckley. Latter-day Saints will recognize those names: Gates was a prominent composer and Hinckley was the Latter-day Saint Prophet from 1995 to 2008. The scene in the movie takes place around 1920 - 1922. Gates was born in 1921 and Hinckley in 1910; Gates would have been one year old and Hinckley 11 or 12 years old.
- Crazy creditsIn the closing credits, footnotes are added where someone appeared in the film who's related to someone depicted in it.
- ConnectionsReferences Rocky (1976)
- How long is The Fighting Preacher?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $954,641
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $60,223
- Jul 28, 2019
- Gross worldwide
- $954,641
- Runtime
- 1h 40m(100 min)
- Color
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