Disbelief

however, if anybody looked up the production company, PureFlix, they do movies that are intended to be pure, wholesome and Christian. Just the same way that Marvel does SuperHero films, this company is known for those type films. So they didn't really hide, because this is the type of film they always shoot for. If Redbox or anyone else labeled it different, that is on them. I've seen movies build as comedies that were clearly dramas.

While that is true, people do go on IMDB, and could see that the actresses Logan White only does films that are faith based. Same with the writers. When I was at the local movie theater, they billed this as a Christian Comedy, so did several newspapers and Internet sites. I generally like to look into the movies before I go see them. Anybody who took 3 minutes to look would have known what kind of movie this is.

they advertised it on Christian television channel, UPtv as Christian, same with radio stations K-Love and FLN. When it was advertised for instant streaming on Time Warner and Direct Tv, it was labeled as "light-hearted Family friendly Film." Redbox has it under family comedies. I think their intention was to make a film for everyone to enjoy, not just Christians. In the same way that you go to a theater and see a film not always knowing what is in it. For example: I've seen a poster that says PG-13, but not what it was for. Turns out it was for sexual humor. Or you go see a movie like Avengers. You expect violence, but do you expect drinking or the writer/ director's political views? If a movie can be made that puts people's political views or personal's beliefs into a movie, but they are "hidden" or not seen in the trailer, why can a movie like this not be a comedy that adds a Biblical element. You don't have to be a Christian to watch and enjoy the film. Just as watching a film like "Fury." You don't have to have any connection to World War 2, to just watch. Or Monster/ Zombie movies, you may not believe in them, but it's just in fun. We watch it, say it's a good movie and move on.

This is not a Christian movie. It has a church as part of the storyline but FAR from a christian movie. People are delusional. lol

Ok, I am not trying to join the debate or take a side per se, but rather offer something to think about. I personally was not offended by the religious undertones of this movie, I found them appropriate and refreshing. However, I was surprised by them simply because it was not something that was apparent on the box and I had no idea what type of movies this production company produces. So I understand that some may feel that there was misrepresentation or bait and switch. For those that say the influx of other beliefs into this country requires Christians to reaffirm their beliefs, I ask reaffirm to who? Do folks who believe differently shake your beliefs? I have never understood that. And lastly, the big question for anyone who does not understand why some may feel that they were misled and taken aback by the Christian theme; what if the focal point was the Islamic faith. What if you and your family tuned in to what you thought was a funny little comedy and it had characters referencing Allah, shared quotes from Koran, featured a scene in a mosque and that beautiful speach from Trace Atkins was him playing an Imam or Muslin spiritual leader? We do live in a multifaceted, pluralistic country, and that is an awesome thing. Maybe a little tolerance from everyone would go a long way.

I think the problem is that especially with social media and comment lists today, anytime you have a story in which any of the characters who are supposed to be sympathetic say anything at all about being religious, believing in God, being churchgoers (as if tens of millions of people in the U.S. weren't churchgoers -- but you'd hardly know it by almost any mainstream film), etc., you get a flood of hostility directed back at the film and the filmmakers from an antireligious crowd so zealously fundamentalist in their own beliefs that they rival any anti-intellectual, primal-group-identity-oriented fundamentalist Christian (or Muslim, or whatever). So you end up with a real marketing problem, where you're trying to do films about people who are more like many millions of people than they are like most of the characters in most mainstream films coming out of Hollywood, and you're trying to market to people outside the "Christian film" crowd, because what's the use in simply making Christian-themed movies for people who are already Christian? But people outside the faith act like people inside it are just aliens to be shunned, or something. It probably doesn't help that a lot of Christians act like aliens, or reactionaries, or racists, or anti-intellectual know-nothings. But then, there are people in every religion, or outside religion, who do those things too, and most people who identify themselve as Christians aren't really anything like that. But again, you'd hardly know it from anything you see in mainstream film or on regular TV programming.

It's unfair, I guess, but it's also true that it's just human nature for a group to be unfairly broad-brushed because of the actions of the loudest, most ignorant, and most extreme, even if in their very extremity they violate the actual tenets of what allegedly makes them members of that group. You would hope some of the people outside the group who keep telling everybody how much more enlightened they are (the anti-religionists, I mean) would make that necessary intellectual move that would make them avoid false assumptions about whether a majority of any group ought to be characterized by the worst in it. But that's a different subject, I guess.

In short, I think you're onto it. For some reason, it just pisses people off entirely for characters in a film to go to church as anything other than an empty cultural activity, or to say something about what God would want, as if no people in the United States ever did that; but the same people have absolutely no problem with characters acting in selfish, shallow, sexually irresponsible, and brutal ways on film. Or, really, having some religion other than Christianity (such as those depicted in the sword-and-sorcery stuff). It's just this massive offense to a certain segment of the population, and I don't know that anybody can do much about it.

I'm doing a minireview in a separate post, but just briefly, as a former film critic and film student, I really thought MNO was a very good effort, much better than the user-review number, at least as good as (and I think better than) most of what passes for comedy now among mainstream releases, and it probably did about as good a job as you can do in being unapologetic about the religious connections of the characters while not beating the audience over the head didactically with it. I did think there was a little too much neat wrap-up kinda stuff at the end (sort of a "here are the lessons I learned" thing), and I wish the writers had taken another look at that and had redone it. But that's kind of a semi-minor carp about a film that I really thought worked very well overall, quite a bit of very good comedy writing and acting, and for me, way more than the usual number of laugh-out-loud moments, although I guess people raised on Farrelly brothers and Apatow will have trouble connecting, as they would with a lot of other styles of film comedy from previous eras that don't depend on a constant stream of profanity, gross-out, and junior-high sex humor put in adult terms. I thought this film worked, and I thought it was probably the best movie bridge I've seen yet to an audience outside the church crowd.

Incidentally, I think in the long run there's going to be a huge market for this sort of thing. There will always be tens of millions of people in this country, and in quite a few other countries as well, who would like to be able to watch a movie with their kids without being subjected to yet another CGI-fest with the occasional tiresome poopoo-caca humor (for edginess or naughtiness, I guess...something). If a label is funded well, and that label gains a reputation for being trustable so that parents to whom this sort of thing matters (I'm one of them) know they can watch it without the usual endless calculations of whether there are too many beheadings or shootings or naked body parts (is a brief flash of breast okay? maybe in the bath? maybe for the 16-year-old but not for the 12-year-old? and so forth) or profanity (is one f-word too much in an otherwise worthwhile film? how about five? 25? how can you do a film about gangsters without profanity? etc.), there will be a developing market for it, I absolutely guarantee it.

Also, just to follow up on that earlier response: I do think maybe some percentage of that reaction to "Christian" films (and "Christian" art and literature more generally -- see Frank Schaffer et al.) may be due to the fact that far too often, the people producing it seem satisfied with substandard levels of quality and storylines that really aren't made for anybody who doesn't already believe what the filmmakers believe. In other words, they play well in churches, but not so well out of churches. (For what it's worth, I do think this particular film has the potential to play well outside churches.)

This same production company has put out several other recent films, as I'm sure you know. One of them, Courageous, is a well-meaning film about some worthwhile subject matter, and it has some good moments, but it really does sabotage itself at some points, and it does matter that it does this. Just one example: The lead actor (who plays a sheriff's deputy) ends up speaking in church at the end, and to anybody who's been around evangelical churches, it is completely obvious that this guy is a preacher by trade. (Watch and listen to the way the voice rises and falls, how he raises up on his feet at the ends of phrases, how the words are put together in a certain preacherly way, etc. -- not like the words that would've been written by a deputy and spoken either nervously or flatly, by somebody not used to public speaking in front of that many people.)

That sort of thing really undermines what you're trying to do in a film like this. I mean, it's just deadly. Like, "Oh, that guy was a preacher all along. An amateur actor. This whole story was just a Trojan horse to get us to swallow the message at the end." I'm telling you, people outside the church really get irritated by that sort of thing. I hope the production company got some very direct feedback on that point. You just can't have that kind of false note in a film where people are looking closely at what Christians are doing, artwise.

Now, in Moms' Night Out, they actually give the guy the role of a pastor, and it's not a huge part. Good for them. Much better decision.

I actually wonder how much the influence of Patty Heaton (who was also one of the executive producers) made this film a cut or two above the usual "Christian" fare, which I think it clearly is. This movie seems to have been made under the hand of somebody who understood what a more professional effort actually is.

I enjoyed it.