I’ve been pretty excited to watch Darren Doane’s Free Speech Apocalypse for a few months
now, especially after noting that he directed Collision, which is my favorite C
Nevertheless, to tide me over, I looked up a few of his
other works to tide me over. Unstoppable was good – seen that
one. Saving
Christmas? Er, word around the block
(and I mean by that people who would actually appreciate the theology of this
movie – not the general assessment of the world) is that it was pretty
bad. Mercy
Rule? Haven’t heard of that one, but
why not? Let’s give it a try.
What was interesting about it is that it wasn’t what we
would call a “Christian” film. It is a
self-described “family” film, but we would not immediately say it is
“Christian” except that Doane directed and Kirk Cameron stars in it.
Does that mean it’s not Christian? Well, the whole point of this blog is to
point out that just because we label something as “Christian” doesn’t mean that
it is good theology, or even really that it is at all Christian. At the same time, here we have a film that
stands thoroughly on a Christian worldview as its foundation. It is about things – truth, honestly,
community, family, righteousness, a good work ethic – that God loves. The antagonists in this movie are not only
the bad guys trying to take what isn’t theirs.
It’s also the pride of life and the desire for wealth or recognition
that is part of the main characters themselves.
The theology
And that’s the part that’s really good about it. It’s not simply that there are villains out there. Both the father’s struggle and the son’s
struggle are brought on by their own sin.
For the father, it was the desire for more wealth that caused him to lie
in order to take taxpayer dollars, even though he didn’t earn them. That opened the door for some shyster to use
that lie to his own advantage.
Basically, Cameron was applying to get government assistance in
disposing of toxic waste, even though he didn’t have any toxic waste, but another
character used a new toxic waste law to try to get control over Cameron’s
business.
For the son, his pride as a baseball player caused him to
quite acting like a team player in order to promote himself, which in turn got
him benched. He had to learn to desire
the good of the team above himself before he could again shine.
Not at all bad. But
here’s a more subtle one, and one the average viewer may overlook – the city
council falls for the same greed that Cameron himself did. They passed the toxic waste law not because
they thought it was good for the community, but for the tax dollars it
represented. It’s easy to increase
government control when you’re doing it against something that is perceived as
an enemy. But with that enemy,
government increases control, and it never decreases again. And that’s how it goes, isn’t it? Every bill that is passed is against someone
else, and not you, until you find your freedom gone too.
The film is also undoubtedly conservative. That’s not a separate issue as the
theology. It is wrong for the government
to take money that is not rightfully theirs, and it is wrong for them to pass
frivolous laws, as they very often do.
We as Christians are not to just blindly accept the things a government
says. We are to stand on truth. Most of us recognize that when it comes to
abortion, but do you see the moral issue when government passes frivolous laws
designed to benefit their friends at the expense of the people? What about when we pay for programs by piling
debt on to the backs of our children?
The commands of God, such as “do not steal” and “do not covet,” apply
very much to people in government too.
And also to voters, by the way, which is something we too
easily forget when we are fighting an enemy with someone else’s money.
The annoying introduction
So the theological foundations of the film aren’t bad at
all. In fact, it touches on some areas
that the normal “Christian” film doesn’t go (since normally “Christian” films
are about straightening up your wicked ways or the Rapture). But all is for naught if the story isn’t good.
And as we get into the film’s story a bit, let me state
right off the bat that the film itself is off to a bad start. Like a rapper who decides to talk over the
intro music about the song itself instead of letting the song speak for itself
(a pet peeve of mine), Kirk Cameron greets the camera directly at the beginning
to report that, after a long search for a good family movie, they decided to
make one for themselves.
Now, besides the fact that the movie is too long anyway
(we’ll talk about that again), this adds nothing to the film, and comes across
as amateurish. It’s every cliché about
Christian film rolled up and stuck at the very beginning. And the rest of the film is not made on this
low level, so why this was put at the beginning bewilders me. It is so bad, in fact, that we had to put it
into its own section before moving on.
The film as a story
But after that point, it’s honestly not bad. It is entertaining, at least, and it kept my
attention the whole time. But my main
concern is whether it would keep anyone else’s.
And here’s what I mean.
My wife didn’t like it. My kids
are really too small to pay attention, but the film is really long (really long), and there are some just
long stretches of dialogue in it that may bore even older kids a bit. Furthermore, it’s supposed to be a somewhat
light-hearted family movie, but the direction style makes it feel like Law and
Order. Lot of shaky-cam, cutting back
and forth, etc. So the feel of the movie
and the subject matter doesn’t really line up.
It feels like a Smith’s song – with the camera as Morrisey’s brooding lyrics
and the story of Marr’s bouncing, energetic melodies.
Except that the Smiths had this uncanny ability to make that
work, and this film doesn’t.
A couple of the characters are so off-the-wall that they
actually distract from the point. The
baseball coach to so wacky that his speech about teamwork and helping each
other threatens to be totally lost on the viewer. Likewise, the bad guy is so obviously bad
that the points about being self-sufficient and not taking from others can
easily be overlooked.
Conclusion
But even so, it’s close. It’s getting there. The movie is not the new Christian
Renaissance that we want, but it’s failing in the right direction. Doane is seeing the problem and working to
correct it, even though he doesn’t fully correct it. So, yeah, this is not a great film, but it’s
on much firmer ground than God’s Not Dead.
And it’s worthwhile to keep going down this road. Doane should be continuing on this road. Okay, at the end of the day, I don’t necessarily
recommend this one, but at very least it’s fun, and I don’t have to give twelve
theological caveats to it, which is an improvement.
