God's Not Dead

I was not surprised to discover that God's Not Dead is a largely one-sided movie that preaches to the choir - i.e. its built-in audience that has been flocking to this movie the past few weeks to see a movie that agrees with their point of view, and have turned this independent Christian film into a modest hit.  What did surprise me is how dragged out and boring it is.  Here is a movie that starts with an intriguing premise, then does as little as possible with it, choosing instead to distract us with characters who barely reach two dimensions, plenty of dumb subplots, and pointless cameos by two of the stars of TV's Duck Dynasty, and the Christian Rock group, Newsboys.

The film seems to be emulating the style of Magnolia or Crash, movies that took multiple storylines and characters, and wove them together into one narrative.  God's Not Dead bungles this ambition early on, with thin characters and storytelling so sloppy, some of the plots don't even get any real resolution or closure.  The characters who inhabit these stories are either stereotypes, or comically underwritten.  In fact, the one character I found the most interesting is the one the movie I think wants us to hate the most.  That would be Professor Radisson, an atheist who teaches an introductory philosophy course, and on the first day of class, orders all his students to write down the words "God is dead" on a sheet of paper, so he can move past the stuff about religion, and onto stuff he finds more interesting.  It's not that this character is any deeper or written more realistically than the others.  Truth be told, he's just as bad, as the movie goes out of its way to show how transparently evil Professor Radisson is supposed to be, with how he verbally and physically threatens his students in the halls, and puts down his suffering Christian girlfriend in public.

No, what made Professor Radisson interesting is who plays him, former TV Hercules star, Kevin Sorbo.  He gives the best performance in the film, as he's not only enjoying chewing the scenery when his character is at his most evil, but he actually manages to draw some real emotion out of his performance during the scenes that explore his backstory.  That's a lot more than can be said for young actor, Shane Harper, who comes across as being quite bland as Radisson's main rival, and the character the movie wants us to get behind.  Harper plays college freshman, Josh Wheaton, whose Christian faith prevents him from writing the message that Radisson wants his whole class to jot down at the beginning of the year.  He decides to challenge the Professor's notion that God is dead, and engage him in a series of debates in front of the class that will prove the existence of God.  The movie wants us to think that Josh is standing alone in his beliefs, and that he ultimately rises against those who doubt him.  But you know, other than his stuck up girlfriend leaving him early on because he refuses to back down from arguing about his beliefs, it never comes across that strong.

Josh makes his arguments to the class with the aid of computer animated simulations of the galaxy that he supposedly made himself in a matter of hours, but look like they were designed by a professional special effects studio.  He talks about how people can't prove God does not exist, and this supposedly makes Professor Radisson so angry, that he violently corners the kid in the hall after class, and screams something along the lines about how Josh is embarrassing him, and that the Professor is supposed to be God in his own classroom.  It's one of the many melodramatic moments in the film that made me squirm in my seat while I was watching it.  Another was a subplot concerning a Muslim girl at the college, who becomes interested in Christianity, and whose father beats her and throws her out of the house when he discovers she's listening to the Bible on her MP3 player.  The movie has not bothered to make this father a real character.  All we know about him is that he's a traditionalist, and believes there is only one religion.  Does this answer why he suddenly turns into a violent sociopath toward his own daughter?  Of course not, but the movie refuses to dig any deeper than that.

There are a slew of other equally pointless and undeveloped subplots to distract us from the main story between Josh and Professor Radisson.  There's a liberal blogger who likes to launch surprise attack interviews on Duck Dynasty stars and Christian Rock bands, until she finds out she has cancer.  She also happens to be dating a businessman who is so evil, he openly mocks his Christian mother over the fact she has Dementia.  This character is played by Dean Cain (another TV star from the 90s), and he pretty much exists to be the most transparently evil character ever written.  When his girlfriend tells him she has cancer, he breaks up with her. ("Couldn't you wait to tell me this tomorrow?", he asks her.) In yet another plot, a Chinese student at the college becomes interested in Christianity, despite the objections of his father.  And finally, there's a comic relief plot about a hip young pastor who wants to take his African missionary friend to Disney World, but they keep on running into car trouble, which tests the pastor's faith.

God's Not Dead, for all of its obvious intentions, is brought down by a sluggish pace, and the direction by Harold Cronk, who lingers on some shots for far longer than he needs to.  It also doesn't give enough time for both sides of its central argument to make their cases.  Not that it's all that interested in its own central argument.  It keeps on distracting us with cameos, subplots, and Christian rock concerts to the point that the movie almost completely loses its way.  I have no problem with movies that express a certain religious viewpoint (Christian or otherwise), but why do they have to be as poorly written and made as haphazardly as this?  The fact that this movie has become a box office success shows that there is a market for films with a religious slant.  At the same time, it also shows that quality does not matter when it comes to this approach, which is the wrong message to send to filmmakers.

In the end, the ultimate message I got from the film is that those who disagree with the viewpoint of the hero and the makers of this movie are wrong in every way, and the only way they can be "saved" is by accepting the ways of thinking of its main character.  There is no room for argument, or real debate, or even understanding of either side.  There is "good", and then there is over the top melodrama evil.  Given the interesting questions the film's central premise automatically brings about, that's way too simplistic of an approach to take.

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