The Encounter (2010)

As somewhat of an Agnostic who have nothing against Christian movies on principal, I still found this to be a offensively bad, poorly made and biased propaganda piece that did the complete opposite of what it tried to do.The film centers around a small group of different people who find themselves on a forest road in the middle of nowhere, only to find that the main road they are traveling has been closed down due to a storm. Instead they all detour to a side road to find a diner to take shelter in, only to find out that the guy owning it is in fact Jesus. Then he starts to grill them about their hidden dark pasts in an attempt to rekindle their faith.Now this concept in of itself could maybe have worked if it was played subtly. For example, if it was left ambiguous whether or not this man is truly Jesus or not. Perhaps have the protagonists open up about themselves in believable ways by their own will to create an actual on-screen relationship between them, and to give real weight to their decisions to change their ways. Instead, we have Jesus practically forcing his way into their minds and threatening them with eternal damnation, while acting like a straight up sociopathic serial killer and stalker.I can't stress this enough, this is the single worst portrayal of Jesus on film I have ever seen, even worse than Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, and that portrayal was intended to be bad for the sake of comedy. He plays on people's pains and fears to manipulate them, going as far as to force a girl to forgive her sexually abusive dad with threats of eternal damnation and an awful future life, and literally demands the people in the diner to bend to his will. I thought Jesus was supposed to love everybody and ask people to love him back on their own free will?It doesn't help that the protagonists in this movie are all bland stock characters with dull, lifeless acting bringing them to life either. We got our obligatory straw Atheist, the bickering couple contemplating divorce, the troubled girl who is losing her faith due to trauma and the born again Christian who is basically already in Jesus' good graces. But she is ordered to leave her boyfriend anyways because it amuses Jesus and because her boyfriend isn't Christian. None of them feel like real people except for the straw Atheist character, who surprisingly seem to act somewhat rationally to begin with outside of being a massive jerk, before eventually succumbing to the granary.Gluing this story of abuse and misquoting of religious text together is also some really shoddy technical work, that at times is at the levels of a home movie. Cheap stock thunder effects, tons of noticeable continuity errors, an obvious home camera that is carried by the camera operator most of the time, and a sound designer that thinks panning dialogue entirely to the left speaker is somehow a good idea. It looks and feels cheap and amateurish, even for a low budget production.In the end it's hard to even describe what happens in this movie, because it is just really an hour and a half of incredibly uncomfortable or ridiculous interviews with paper thin characters being interrogated by some sort of being claiming to be Jesus. Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the fact that Satan appears in the movie towards the end (named DeVille, because it's that sort of movie) I would have expected the big final twist to be that this is Satan pretending to be Jesus or something.At the end of the day, the movie is terrible not because it is Christian, but because it's a movie that tries to scare non believers and people like me, who find themselves caught between camps, to repent. Hell, the film itself states this outright. As such, it not only ends up as an absolutely dreadful viewing experience (unless you riff it the entire time), but also a disservice to religion as a whole. It unknowingly paints Christianity as an evil force that is only marginally better than the alleged damnation you would face otherwise, rather than the positive force in somebody's life it's intended to be.The only positive thing I have to say about this is that it is at least not A Little Piece of Heaven with Kirk Cameron.

By thunder! That... was... so... beautiful! ^_^ What a little movie with a lot of heart! This movie *deserves* more attention; we gotta increase the DVD sales, or iTunes, rentals of this film!Okay, so we all know the most popular Jesus movie is "Passion of the Christ", but I think even THIS film is pretty wonderful rendition of what Christ is truly like! I even would promote this film to Mel Gibson to watch!And I can see it's only garnered enough ratings as much as if it were an episode of the TV series "Supernatural". It DESERVES much more recognition!I mean, WOW...what a powerful film, POWERFUL! I can't believe I missed out on this for several years!! I actually saw it through YouTube, but what it would've been like to see it in a huge screen in a church with hundreds of people, or see it in a regular theater... What I got was really, really good flick that touched me and made me feel good and wanting to be a better person. It is not a heavy-action flick; just a thought-provoking heart-felt movie that is well-worth the time.I wanted to show it to my family, but a lot of them seem quite spontaneously & unnecessarily oversensitive about movies on YouTube and "stealing" and "copyright" at the moment, making the situation mooch more complicated than it really is. So much so it's really gotten aggravating & depressing. The Internet is free! YouTube is free! If an underrated Christian film is on it, hurrah! Praise be to God through the uses of the Internet we can spread this amazing information around!In hindsight of the film, many important questions, many important issues, many important misunderstandings, and much important encouragement was addressed in this motion picture, and congrats to Bruce Marchiano for doing an AMAZING JOB being the same joyous, earthy, smiley, understanding and personal Jesus even with a sense of humor, just like he was in the "Visual Bible: The Gospel of Matthew" series (which we still own on VHS too), the one I saw growing up. Yes, and I believe there's reason for that interpretation, because Christ *is* a personal God, all about relationship, not religion. Jesus came not so people would be more "religious", but that they may have LIFE!And I like how in the story's context of how Jesus is just a simple cook & waiter in a small diner, even in the middle of nowhere, and is not someone "begging for attention" - that's truly an amazing way of how "personal" of a God He truly is. He's not all LIGHTS, CAMERAS, SPOTLIGHT, PAPARAZZI, HYPE, HYSTERIA, etc. No, He doesn't need any of that, nor should we. If it's really our own passion and zeal to work hard for those sorts of things, so be it. But it is only temporary; having riches and eternal life with Christ in Heaven, and wanting to share that great news with everyone else around you is something MUCH more worth of eternal value.This film is not only a truly ANOINTED one, but also a *much-needed* one in this day and age of a corrupted Hollywood, and a truly ANOINTED one at that! :-)And I give this movie credit for introducing me to wrestling champion "Sting" (Steve Borden) - he did a really good job, playing the complex, arrogant, prideful businessman. Though, maybe I would have preferred either Stephen Baldwin or Jensen Ackles to play him (who are ALSO Christian actors) - since maybe I think their popularity would've bumped up this movie's hype a bit more.However, if there is a real down side to this movie, I would say I wish we could've seen a few more miracles done by Jesus (I just wanted to see more); at the ending I was kind of wanting Melissa to go back and give Jesus a BIG HUG before they all left the diner (kinda like one of the Ten Lepers in the Bible who remembered). I mean, the only person who really touched Jesus was Nick when he grabbed Him! Probably just been nice to give Jesus a NICE body gesture after that one.I also now wish this film had addressed and dealt with the BLASPHEMY issue, because that is one hallmark of Hollywood movies that REALLY ticks me off. And if I was one of the collaborative script writers on the movie, I would've probably added another line to that scene where Jesus is talking about "People who steal" and "people who hop from bed to bed," being which, "They use My Name in vain when I Am the one who has given them life, and breath, and everything they have." I think that would've said a lot. But I digressHonestly I can say THANK YOU, David A. R. White, PureFlix, AND God, for creating this miracle of a film!10/10PS: Want to see another film that has the same concept about if Jesus dwelt amongst modern-day people?? See the film "Joshua" (2002)!

First let me disclose I am not a Christian, nor even religious, but I find the subject extremely interesting. I considered myself fair and balanced and wouldn't rate a movie poorly simply because I didn't like or agree with the "message" or a particular actor, etc.The really high ratings seem to be focused on the "message" or topic rather than the movie itself. I watched the movie hoping for something along the lines of "The Man from Earth (2007)", not so much for controversial ideas but at least something thought provoking. The movie missed the mark on so many levels it's shameful.Other negative reviews have already touched on many of the cinematic issues, from acting, dialogue, music score and even continuity, so I won't rehash those. While those issues were hard to take at times, the core of the movie was simply poorly developed.The movie portrayed the believers, and non-believer (truthfully there was only one), as one dimensional, simplistic and not very intelligent. Intelligent people would have asked serious and rather profound questions, this lot didn't ask any. At best the questions were singular, simplistic and dropped after a simple response from Jesus.Overall the movie can be summed up as: Jesus loves you, no one can love you more than Jesus, if you blindly love Jesus you'll live eternally in peace and love in Heaven, and if you don't blindly follow Jesus you will burn in Hell. The message might be what some want to hear, but the journey the movie took to get there was empty and not worth the effort.

The Encounter is a nice piece of independent Christian cinema. It doesn't star Sir Lawrence Olivier or boast a cast of thousands. The low budget production values clearly show but they don't distract. The cast is not sterling and the script could have used another draft or two. Still, the movie was decent and thoughtful and generally enjoyable.There isn't any violence or obscenity or sex in it. That's a welcome relief these days. You can actually sit down and watch it with the kids and not cringe.If you like a quiet Christian movie that will leave you feeling good and slightly more humble, this should fit the bill nicely.