I recently caught the surprise mini-hit Fireproof. It's a good step for Christian filmmaking, but not a particularly good movie.
Cards on the table, I consider myself a citizen of Jesusland, so while I certainly agree with much of the sentiment and theology espoused in the film, the cold-blooded moviegoer in me wasn't keen on the flat writing, overlong runtime and robotic acting (though props to Kirk Cameron, who's the only one to inflate his character with a modicum of charisma).
The Gospel message is explicit and many of the challenges that besiege marriage these days are touched upon (my personal favorite is Cameron's character decision to get rid of his porn-addled computer, which appeared to be a circa 1994 IBM desktop; oh the debacuhery you could store on that 3 GB hard-drive!) but in the end Fireproof just felt like a combination of an infomerical for The Love Dare and one of those small group Bible study DVDs.
I'm authentically pleased the film did good business and if it even helped one person stumble upon a lifestyle and belief system I put a great deal of stock into, then that's just bananas, but I have to be honest with mysef: if this movie wasn't pro-Christian and, say, had been produced by the North American chapter of the Zoroastrians, I'd no doubt lay into it. All thing being equal, Fireproof just isn't that great.
And, alas, it follows an unsightly parade of mediocre or below-mediocre Christian movies (the Left Behind movies, The Genius Club). Once in a while you get something like Passion of the Christ (which has its moments but is largely overrated as a prosteltyization tool) or the Narnia films or, my current favorite Christ-focused movie, Ving Rhames's Saving God, but until our cinematic brethren are able to raise their game, I fear that the Holy genre will remain niche and, worse, not taken seriously.
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