Movie Review: "Courageous"

Couargeous

Directed by: Alex Kendrick
Starring: Alex Kendrick, Ken Bevel, Ben Davies, Kevin Downes
Rated: PG-13 for some violence and drug content

Following their 2008 hit film Fireproof, the Kendrick brothers’ next fare into Christian film is Courageous, a police/family drama (a first in it’s genre) that deals with masculinity and what it means to be a godly man. While certainly a more ambitious film then Fireproof, Courageous seems to get lost in it’s own good-intentions. The film suffers from two major setbacks. The first is that the Kendricks seemingly have a thousand themes to talk about in this one movie; dealing with the death of a child, not being able to provide for your family, fathering a child out of wedlock, and protecting your daughter’s heart (just to name a few) all our jumbled together under the broad theme of “Biblical masculinity”, which leads them to build the story around these themes, and not vice versa. This makes the film feel “preachy”, as the world calls it, and minimizes the story’s (or perhaps I should stories’) impact. All of the sub-plots of the film could have successfully made their own film, but by crashing them all-together, it comes across as rushed, forced, and illogical, with minimal impact on the audience. The story also lacks realism, such as one scene that depicts a cop’s friend riding in the back of a police car with an arrested gang member. This hardly builds the realism that the message demands.

Secondly, the film is in need of professionals to pick up the gauntlet that their earlier films have set. They could have used some professional writers, editors, cinematographers, and actors to take the story to a higher quality. Instead, the Kendricks seemingly try to do everything themselves. And what they can’t do, they ask their fellow pastors and church members to do. The problem is that they are pastors and church members, not actors. People who are portraying husbands and wives have about as much chemistry as, well, fellow church members. This is really a weakness with the Kendricks’ movies, especially when compared to other films that had Courageous’ budget.

Not all is bad with Courageous; unlike some of their films, I actually agreed with most of the theology in this movie, the film has a preachy-yet-powerful ending, and it has some decent action scenes, but even those raise some questions (like how it is okay to show gun fights and hand-to-hand combat in Christian films, but having the gang members cuss is somehow unacceptable?) I have a lot of respect for the Kendricks and Sherwood church, mainly because they’re actually making movies, but I refuse to hold their films to a lower standard. The Kendricks need to learn that they are pastors and church members trying to be filmmakers, and no amount of money, popularity, or good theology can change that. If they want to be the leaders of Christian film, they need to be courageous enough to take the next step towards professionalism.