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Every year a handful of "faith-based" movies come out, and usually the same four or five people will contact me asking if we're going to have this or that movie playing. Usually my response is that we might, if it's not out on video already and we have room in the schedule. Usually the movie won't meet either or both of those criteria.
This one was a bit different because it was from the producers of "I Can Only Imagine," which did great business when we had it, so I took a bit more notice than usual, and the volume of requests for it was about triple the usual, and lo and behold we DID have time in the schedule, and the movie is NOT on video yet, so we brought it in.
It's not really a "faith-based" movie, it's more like a documentary of a time and a cultural movement, which I remember quite well. A sub-set of hippies along the California coast has "found Jesus" and started looking for fulfillment in the Scriptures rather than in drugs or alcohol. The idea catches on, baptism start taking place, and eventually the movement spreads.
The action shifts to a small Lutheran church where the minister, Chuck Smith, is a nondescript preacher doing standard sermons and despairing that his church is too empty. Seeing a bunch of hippies on TV, he wonders (as every parent everywhere has always done), what's wrong with the kids today. His slightly rebellious daughter, Janette, tells him he "just doesn't understand," whereupon he says "If God wants me to understand hippies, he can send me one." And sure enough, because God's specialty in the movies is to make things happen, a hippie enters the picture.
The first hippie Chuck encounters is Lonnie Frisbee, a wanderer who is just tramping the area "sharing the good news with anyone who wants to listen." Lonnie is fetched home by Janette, who tells her dad, "Just listen to him for ten minutes and if you still think he's crazy, I'll throw him out myself" and you get the feeling she means it. Lonnie is played by Jonathan Roumie, and he has most of the best comic-relief lines in the movie. Lonnie is able to break through with Chuck, who brings him in as a guest speaker at his church, and from there it spreads into a regionwide phenomenon, eventually going national.
Whether this movement did any good or harm to "regular" churches is a topic for another forum, but is the movie any good? Kelsey Grammer plays the minister of the Lutheran church where the movement has its roots, and he does a good job as the slightly befuddled older gentleman who can't quite understand why these unwashed, no-shoes-wearing hippies want to hang out in his house ("it has such a good vibe," according to one of the interlopers). Even so, he can't help but be caught up in their enthusiasm.
But the focus of the movie is really supposed to be on Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney), as one of the "lost souls" who is trying to find fulfillment in artwork and drugs, and eventually becomes interested in the Jesus movement. It's kind of odd because until about two-thirds through the show, although Greg keeps hanging around the fringes of the story, you feel like it's really about the relationship between Chuck and Lonnie, because Lonnie seems to be sort of "taking over" Chuck's ministry to the point of becoming a faith healer. There's a conflict between Lonnie's grandiose "In Jesus' name you are HEALED!" theatrics and Chuck's more traditional preaching, and just when the conflict is building and seems about to boil over into something really interesting, the story suddenly veers over into Greg's wandering ways and how he eventually finds the direction he needs to be going.
So it is an entertaining movie, you wind up liking all of the characters, but there's a buildup of tension in one place, followed by a resolution coming from a different place where you don't really expect it, which makes for a kind of disjointed experience. There is a lot of good music, both of the secular and "modern Gospel" variety, and the costumes, sets and lighting really evoke the look of the early '70s. It was a movie I felt at home in.
I'll give it a 2.5 out of five, considering it's a good movie but not a great one.
This one was a bit different because it was from the producers of "I Can Only Imagine," which did great business when we had it, so I took a bit more notice than usual, and the volume of requests for it was about triple the usual, and lo and behold we DID have time in the schedule, and the movie is NOT on video yet, so we brought it in.
It's not really a "faith-based" movie, it's more like a documentary of a time and a cultural movement, which I remember quite well. A sub-set of hippies along the California coast has "found Jesus" and started looking for fulfillment in the Scriptures rather than in drugs or alcohol. The idea catches on, baptism start taking place, and eventually the movement spreads.
The action shifts to a small Lutheran church where the minister, Chuck Smith, is a nondescript preacher doing standard sermons and despairing that his church is too empty. Seeing a bunch of hippies on TV, he wonders (as every parent everywhere has always done), what's wrong with the kids today. His slightly rebellious daughter, Janette, tells him he "just doesn't understand," whereupon he says "If God wants me to understand hippies, he can send me one." And sure enough, because God's specialty in the movies is to make things happen, a hippie enters the picture.
The first hippie Chuck encounters is Lonnie Frisbee, a wanderer who is just tramping the area "sharing the good news with anyone who wants to listen." Lonnie is fetched home by Janette, who tells her dad, "Just listen to him for ten minutes and if you still think he's crazy, I'll throw him out myself" and you get the feeling she means it. Lonnie is played by Jonathan Roumie, and he has most of the best comic-relief lines in the movie. Lonnie is able to break through with Chuck, who brings him in as a guest speaker at his church, and from there it spreads into a regionwide phenomenon, eventually going national.
Whether this movement did any good or harm to "regular" churches is a topic for another forum, but is the movie any good? Kelsey Grammer plays the minister of the Lutheran church where the movement has its roots, and he does a good job as the slightly befuddled older gentleman who can't quite understand why these unwashed, no-shoes-wearing hippies want to hang out in his house ("it has such a good vibe," according to one of the interlopers). Even so, he can't help but be caught up in their enthusiasm.
But the focus of the movie is really supposed to be on Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney), as one of the "lost souls" who is trying to find fulfillment in artwork and drugs, and eventually becomes interested in the Jesus movement. It's kind of odd because until about two-thirds through the show, although Greg keeps hanging around the fringes of the story, you feel like it's really about the relationship between Chuck and Lonnie, because Lonnie seems to be sort of "taking over" Chuck's ministry to the point of becoming a faith healer. There's a conflict between Lonnie's grandiose "In Jesus' name you are HEALED!" theatrics and Chuck's more traditional preaching, and just when the conflict is building and seems about to boil over into something really interesting, the story suddenly veers over into Greg's wandering ways and how he eventually finds the direction he needs to be going.
So it is an entertaining movie, you wind up liking all of the characters, but there's a buildup of tension in one place, followed by a resolution coming from a different place where you don't really expect it, which makes for a kind of disjointed experience. There is a lot of good music, both of the secular and "modern Gospel" variety, and the costumes, sets and lighting really evoke the look of the early '70s. It was a movie I felt at home in.
I'll give it a 2.5 out of five, considering it's a good movie but not a great one.
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