The fact that the CEO had his mind blown by Tony doing the right thing seems to be an accidental commentary on how shady and cut-throat the world of pharmaceutical sales must be.
This movie doesn't hate women, it just has a really fucked up perspective about them and how relationships are supposed to work. The core message I got from it was that all the bad things that were happening in this marriage were ultimately the woman's fault because she wasn't praying enough and that to resolve the problem she needed to stop trying to actually address it, and just pray more. In other words, it's another Christian film where the moral is to not take responsibility for your actions and leave it to Jesus. Then again, my perspective might be skewed by the fact that my mother was vilified by people with similar ideas. She was married prior to meeting my dad (who she's now been married to for 33 years) but ended up getting divorced when she learned the guy was a cheating asshole. Her family happened to be quite religious and told her she needed to stand by her man and pray for him to be stronger, instead she did the sinful (according to this movie) thing and divorced the bastard.
+andyhoov Your mother was a smart woman and she did the right thing if she's been married over 30 years to your father. It's like a quote I find on Facebook "Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you're told, and religion is doing what you're told regardless of what is right."
As a UK resident, I should say that Double Dutch has a double meaning over here; it basically means languages that's difficult to understand or complete gibberish, given that this sounds like a Fundie film that actually seems rather appropriate.
The guards and the women are both correct depending on which gospel you read. You'll find none of the gospels really match up for how the resurrection went down and most Christian's tell a chimera story were they pick and choose their favorite parts from each telling.
+Robby and The New Age Healer Kind of like how they pick and choose parts of the Book of Leviticus they think are REALLY important vs ones they don't follow at all. Hypocrisy is an art form that modern Christians have perfected.
The coffee scene bugs me too, and this couple's marriage needed to end in divorce before it ended in murder. As for theater candy, I'm old-fashioned-I love Junior mints.
+SeriousGamer2009 That's true for a lot of these movies, Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas is especially notorious for missing the mark for both the non-religious and these Christians that actually read the bible.
Appropriate that Sarah had completely different interpretation of the movie than the guys. After all religion is something different people interpret differently.
Sarah would Pesci style stomp the fuck out of the devil, Brad please review Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2 Wrong Number (video game) its late 80's/Drive (film) inspired top down shooter with an outstanding soundtrack - Dan "The Face"
Ugh, this movie is bad enough, but then the previews pile on yet more propaganda about converting atheists through praysport and failing to separate church and state, it makes me really sad those movies still have audiences...
The reason nobody ever stops David from carrying an outside beverage into the theater is because your theater's floor staff is very well trained. The experience comes above all. It's not worth the employees' time to bitch out one customer when a possible outcome is the customer making a big stink over it. That ruins everyone else's experience, leading to people being dickheads on Yelp and whatnot.
I think the EMT friend came off as kinda “street” because he was the token black character in this film, and originally the cast was going to be white before there were last-minute changes to the casting. So now, we have a predominantly-black movie that features a token “black” character (written by a white guy).
Why would you crazy people torture yourselves by seeing this movie TWICE? I love Brad and all, but if that nutcase would recommend me seeing a movie he or someone else in the group has already seen, I would question his sanity and hang up on him! ROFL Christians are so hungry for movies that are geared towards them that they will see any BS that spouts their views no matter how patronizing and condescending it is. I'm Christian and I wouldn't waste my money much less my eyesight on that mess....
+Denise Faraday I don't think it's really Christinas who these movies are aimed at, it's people stuck in the 50th and 60th, it being christian (albeit in a twisted way) is just a side effect of that.
I disagree that it's not misogynistic just because it comes from a religion. Religion wasn't handed down from any god. It is a product of a world that has historically owned and controlled women.
I'm a Christian and this film is offensive. It turns people's relationships into fights, it turns women into attachments of men, and it turns God into a willing slave for people who kiss His ass enough times.
Apparently this was a truly awful movie because there were tons of things you guys didn't like about it ever without explaining why it was you didn't like the things you didn't like… You know what that makes this review? atrociously mind numbing and pedantic. (I saw the movie. I thought it was solid considering the budget) It's number 1 at the BO this weekend btw
+Jesse Rochon In terms of stuff like cinematography and some of the more mechanical aspects of film making it is okay, but even putting aside the reprehensible morality it presents it still suffers from major issues. First and foremost is the fact that it never actually presents you with a reason why this marriage should be saved outside of trying not to make the baby Jesus cry. It needed scenes that actually showed some measure of civility and respect between the husband and wife to show why they might have even got together in the first place. Based on what we can see in the film, this couple shares nothing in common and have nothing but utter contempt for one another so there is no reason why the audience should really be rooting for them to get back together. And then there is the fact that the film is way too bloated. From the point where the husband starts to turn things around, you could have cut probably 75% of what was going on. The fact he was stealing and selling drugs was really redundant at this point because we had already firmly established how much of an irredeemable swine he was. Having the guy reconnect with his daughter was a good idea but they spent way too much time on that too, especially when they decide to spend five or ten minutes making Step Up: Double Dutch Edition. As for the acting, I'm not as harsh on it as some reviews I've seen but it is definitely overblown and schmaltzy, though that is probably perfectly fine for a lot of movie goers, especially considering the target audience. None of this is to say you need to hate the film as everyone is entitled to their opinion, but just looking at it as objectively as possible and putting aside the themes, I wouldn't go so far as to even describe it as solid compared to the rest of cinema. However, compared to the rest of the recent christian films, the morality is right in line with the rest and the film making is better than average, so I guess I have to give it that.
+andyhoov Now now, Jesse raises a good point. It's #1 at the box office, which automatically means that it's good, for there has never in history been bad movies to reach #1. ;) Also, Brian and Sarah never mentioned what they didn't like about it...except for the characters, the dialogue, the acting, it's hatred of men, the jokes, that marriage can be cured by 'The Secret.' Other than that they mentioned nothing they didn't like about it :P
+Stoned Gremlin Productions Thanks for reminding me! How silly of me to forget that Grown Ups 2 was obviously so much better than Pacific Rim, all the Transformers movies are cinematic gold, and that Avatar is truly the greatest film of all time. And does The Secret work when you watch a movie? Imagine a movie totally sucking at the start, but then by the end it is better just because you willed it to be.
