When Machine Gun Preacher was released to theaters last year it was set up to fail. It was released in less than a hundred theaters and received barely any promotion. Despite having an intriguing title, being based on a true story, and starring the popular Gerard Butler, its lack of wide release and subsequent box office failure led me to guess that it must be as bad as the reviews say it is (an ugly 29% on Rotten Tomatoes). Still, I thought the premise sounded great and I wanted to see it to not only judge it for myself but to also, at the very least, find out where the movie failed. So when we were offered the Blu-ray for review, I jumped at the chance. I’m glad I did, since Machine Gun Preacher certainly isn’t as bad as that 29% suggests. It isn’t a great movie by any means, but the true story that the movie is based on is fascinating enough that it’s worth a watch, even if the film does have very significant flaws.
THE FILM: The Machine Gun Preacher in question is Sam Childers (Gerard Butler), though before he becomes the titular preacher he is a fresh-out-of-jail, drug-addicted outlaw motorcyclist who would rather get high with his best friend Donnie (Michael Shannon, who is great as always) than spend time with his wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) and daughter Paige. It isn’t until a brush with death convinces him to find Jesus that he begins a spiritual journey that leads him to building his own church at home and later an orphanage in the Sudan, for which he goes to violent lengths in order to try to prevent the horrid practice of forcing children to serve as soldiers in the Lord’s Resistance Army (recently profiled in the viral Kony 2012 video).
The film is based on the real-life Sam Childers, and perhaps the film’s most significant flaw was casting Gerard Butler to play him. Butler and his tough guy image is entirely wrong for the role, and while he pulls off the surly moments well in the beginning scenes (when he is an outlaw biker) and later in the film when he is troubled by the enormity of his mission, it seems like director Marc Forster played up the action elements because of Butler. But this isn’t an action story, it’s a drama — so Butler’s character is inconsistently a caring preacher and a Rambo-like warrior. While that oxymoronic aspect is interesting, Butler seems to be playing two completely different characters as he plays toward the extremes. I’m not going to nitpick Butler’s inconsistent American accent because Butler isn’t a bad actor, just the wrong man for this part. In fact, I actually wondered how much better the film would have been had Michael Shannon starred in the lead role. Shannon is not only a better actor than Butler, but he can portray inner conflict better than just about any other actor working today. I agree with Alex’s original review — Shannon steals the show every time.
At just over two hours, the movie is entirely too long and it seems the filmmakers were adamant about getting in every story beat you can imagine from similar “crisis of faith” movies. It’s all here, subtlety be damned, as Forster REALLY wants to show you how disconnected Childers gets from his family as he spends more and more time in Africa. It’s the type of movie that doesn’t respect the intelligence of the audience because conflicts that deserve emotional depth are made to be so obvious. The real-life Childers is a much more emotional complex human being and deserves more than to be reduced to simple and blatant hackneyed plot points.
This is writer Jason Keller‘s first theatrically-released film so I supposed he could be forgiven, but Marc Forster should know better by now. He’s had a rough few years — after the promising Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland, Forster made the disappointing Quantum of Solace before Machine Gun Preacher and is following it with World War Z, which has obviously has a few problems. I hope he gets it back together soon.
NOTE: There are eighteen producers/executive producers/co-producers/supervising producers credited on this movie, including Forster and Butler. Seems like this could have been a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth…
THE FEATURES: As is the (in my opinion, annoying) norm these days, you get three copies of the movie in one package: Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Copy. On the Blu-ray disc are:
A Discussion With Marc Forster — This is essentially a director’s commentary in a short feature rather than throughout the film. It’s interesting to hear Forster speak about his choices, especially the ones that weren’t so great (he raves about Butler being a great choice for the lead role, though that’s not the case). The best part is when he speaks about working with the young children who played the orphans, since many of them were untrained actors.
Making the Music — Also on the DVD, this is actually one of the best features I’ve ever seen about making the music for a film. It interviews all the musicians who contributed to the film, but focuses mainly on composer Thad Spencer. It’s fascinating to hear Spencer speak about his artistic choices for the film’s music and what instruments he used. Believe it or not, this was far more interesting that I expected.
Movie Rating: While not as terrible as others claim it is, Sam Childers’ life deserves a better movie that’s more in-tune with his emotional core (5/10).
Blu-Ray Review: Both features are surprisingly good, but likely because of the film’s poor performance in theaters the number of features is low (6/10).
Machine Gun Preacher is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.
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