Man, life is great.Jack Burton here, dictating from the Pork Chop Express about my 7th movie of the year. Caught To Save a Life earlier today with my cousin at AMC Hoffman Center in Alexandria (his choice). About halfway through, I leaned over and said, "I'm going to kick your ass." This is a very, very sneaky movie. The trailer here depicts a rather generic coming-of-age tale infused with a touch of drama stemming from a friend's suicide. Sure, I wasn't expecting much, but it turned out to be a propaganda piece for the Evangelicals. Yes. It's a Jesus movie. Now, am I so closed-minded as to throw a movie off in the corner or to just shit on it because of Christian themes? I like to think not. But maybe I'm too cynical to give it as much a shot as I should.
The fact is, the lives of these teenagers aren't all that bad. Sure, they have money, and family, and prospects of a bright future... and maybe their parents hate each other or they don't get enough love from daddy, but c'mon. Get real. Nobody's life is perfect, and to espouse their frustrations is almost insulting. So Jake, the blond-haired-blue-eyed poster child for the Aryan Brotherhood, the Evangelical Church, and our protagonist discovers how unhappy he is after his boyhood friend, Roger, kills himself. So he discovers a youth group which is full of hypocrites and headed by the ultra-cool Chris and spends the remainder of the movie trying to help out troubled, minority, emo teens. Apparently all he needs to do is to show that he cares, and suddenly people stop cutting themselves and dress in light pastel colors instead of black. So in the end, the moral is simple: even if you have everything, if you don't have God, you have nothing. Great. Just what I was hoping to see. Y'know that saying "Mo' money, mo' problems?" Try having no money and see your problems just magically disappear, dipshits.
The film itself is just unbelievably dense at times. Everything turns out like a fairy tale and the complications are all tied up with a nice bow by the end. It just wasn't interesting--in fact, you could call it boring. It isn't as bad as some after-school specials, but it's not far off. I'd probably rather watch this than soap operas and talk shows about baby-daddies. The characters aren't really sympathetic, and while I appreciate some cheesiness, the cheese factor was appallingly high. I will give it some kudos for attempting to show some of the hypocrisy and corruption within the church, but each issue was handled with kid's gloves and none of them seemed to be beyond the reach of a simple prayer or finding a proper leader. Simply, the film felt more like a recruiting tool than it did a movie.
Personal politics aside, I do think there is space for religious films, such as the far-superior Mormon undertaking, God's Army. But the difference here is critical: instead of propping up Christianity as a better world or a better life, God's Army is simply about two Mormon missionaries. It's about the characters, and their story. It's not about promising God's love, or promising a brighter future, or undertaking some kind of drastic, sweeping change to better the world. It's not about the world or its problems--it's smart enough to realize that it can't change the world. To do so is just presumptuous and more than a little patronizing. And that's what the makers of To Save a Life need to understand about movies: they're not the end-all. It's about the story, and the characters. And this one was just way too flawed.
Cost Breakdown:
10.50 on the ticket
5.00 on gas
15.50 overall. I want my money back and the earth wants my car to take back the emissions I dumped in the atmosphere.
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