Saving God (2008)

I loved this film. The acting in it is second to none. I think its one of the few films I've watched recently where every character is believable. The story is relatively dark but this, along with the great acting makes the story real. The film doesn't pretend to represent the entire subculture in which it is set but instead is an ethnography of a few characters along with the more generic empowerment of a belief in God. I personally think the film could miss making its point with those who want to watch an overtly religious film or those who want to watch a film about gang warfare. However the film does catch the range of beauty, brutality, egocentric revenge and compassionate forgiveness that we as people can experience. Cracking film - could really do with a squeal :-)

In my point of view there are two types on Christian Movies: the one which breathes the message "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) every minute of the film, disregards any acting, storyline, or character development and attempts to push the Holy Ghost through your throat every minute. The other type is about people who have their hardships ad problems in life, and choose to fight and struggle to get out and take Jesus as their support to what they have to go through. These kind of films often have a solid storyline and are well acted."Saved God" is definitely of the second kind, although not everything was quite realistic.The grandmother sitting in church and nodding in agreement in wet eyed ecstasy with the preacher's speech is common and seen often in real life. The pictured life of the street dealer and his boss is completely according to what is shown in other movies, but I am not sure how true that actually is.--WARNING SPOILER BELOW--- What I find a bit unrealistic is the convicted effort of some of the bad types (the street dealer, his boss, Ashley's mother) to become a better person thanks to God. It is just a little bit overdone. Evil usually conquers. Nevertheless, acting was realistic and believable. If a message had to be passed to the viewers (yes, of course it had, duh!) it was done in a clever and non-pushy way.jlinkels

So the story is about a convicted felon, rev. Armstrong who returns back to his neighborhood. A changed man now, he wants to get the old neighborhood church operating again. But some thugs there make things difficult. OK, I think, not bad, might be a good movie...Well, the reality is that it's an interesting idea, but very poorly executed if you ask me. I maybe believed Ving Rhames's role, the character Armstrong Cane to be an ex-con reverent, obsessed with god and faith after coming out of prison, his acting was good. But all the other characters, I didn't believe them one bit. They were shallow, they suddenly had outbreaks of feelings without any reason, just because the they had to due to the story. I couldn't feel any of these feelings, shallow, shallow. The thugs looked funny, not realistic at all. Just a mix of good ideas, but very badly executed. Afraid to say so, but not worth your time...

Wow! what a fantastic movie. I watched 300 movies last year. This is the best one I've seen this year. It's a movie 'really' worth one's time in watching. I don't understand why, at present, the average vote is 4.6. It looks like the votes are split with a little less than half giving it a '1', and a little more than half giving it a '10'. I was not looking for a movie to glorify violence in choosing this film, the last several years I've tried to watch movies that deal more with good drama, acting skills, or message. This film has all three, as well as enough violence to get it's point across. I've always liked Ving Rhames as an actor, but I believe this is the best film I've ever seen him in.