Life, Man, and God on the Silver Screen
By Adam Graham (10/04/06)
One of the most profound movies to hit the silver screen in recent years wrestles with profound issues of God, faithfulness, and success. The film comes not from Hollywood but Albany, Georgia.
Facing the Giants opened in 441 theaters across America and in that limited release was the 12th highest grossing film in America. What caused hundreds of thousands of America to watch a film featuring actors no one has heard of from a town few outside the South have heard of?
A Different Type of Christian Film
With the notable exceptions of the Passion of the Christ and Jonah: A Veggie Tales movies, Evangelical films have focused to a great extent on the end of days with movies featuring B-actors who work to turn the Lord’s return into a mega-hit. Smaller budget films have had an entirely evangelistic focus.
Writer and star Alex Kendrick has gone another route and produced a far more profound film that is about ordinary people and an extraordinary God.
Kendrick plays Grant Taylor, a football coach at a Christian High School with six losing seasons under his belt and a school whose boosters are rapidly losing confidence in him. At the same time, his car is constantly dying, his house is in a bad state of repair, and he and his wife are struggling with infertility. In the midst of these real problems, Coach Taylor reaches a crisis point and with the encouragement of a faith man of prayer, Taylor takes his life and his team’s in a different direction.
The Power of Attitude
Taylor realizes that his team’s play is purposeless and sloppy because they have no purpose in what they do. Taylor offered a new purpose that he placed as the team’s top priority: bringing glory to God. “We need to give God our best in every area…If we win, we praise him, if we lose, we praise him.”
The team also struggled with an attitude that pre-supposed defeat. In one of the most powerful scenes ever in a sports movie, Taylor takes on the lackadaisical attitude of his team’s Captain. The Coach focuses his efforts on changing the minds, hearts, and attitudes of his team, and the results come forth on the field.
This has led to some to allege that the movie preaches a prosperity doctrine. But it does nothing of the sort. It’s a movie about faith as a living substance, and God working through the life of the faithful. One character spends years upon years praying for a revival in the school before seeing it come to pass. It’s not a movie that promises you a fortune if you serve God, it’s a movie that says God is worthy of our praise in our best and our worst moments, but also that God is faithful.
It’s a movie that leads to reflection on your own life. As I sat in the theater, I realized in many areas of my life, I go out defeated before I’ve even started and fail to do my best. The movie made me ask, “What if I went out and held nothing back?”
While Taylor’s team has to tangle with the three-time state Champion Giants, the movie is really made for those who face “the giants of fear and failure:” all of us. Facing the Giants offers the hope that, in whatever area we face them, we can slay our own giants.
It’d be easy for a movie like this to become saccharine, sappy, preachy, and corny. But Facing the Giants avoids this for the most part with a cast of real people playing real people that turns in heartfelt, endearing, and in some cases, humorous performances. Kendrick turns in a versatile performance through the highs and lows of Coach Taylor.
Whatever happens to the movie from here, Kendrick has faced the Giant of Hollywood and our popular culture with a powerful message of faith, love, and dedication. In the process, he has produced a film that everyone should see.
For theater information go to http://www.facingthegiants.com
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