I hate to see this happen: a faith-based organization invests in a movie as a way to produce revenue and/or converts for their cause – and, in this case, most likely does neither. This may or may not be one of the worst movies of the year, but it is definitely the most heavy-handed. It wears its religion on its sleeve and turns what could have been a heartfelt story into one that becomes unbelievable on its way to becoming uninteresting. The acting is bad, the writing is worse. The directing is poor, the casting is strange. It has very little going for it except the music and while some of the early songs have the energy of the early days of rock and roll, as the movie wears on, the music wears down, becoming derivative and, eventually, redundant.
The story left me cold; I didn’t laugh or cry; I just sat there wondering whether I should leave. I stayed, partially because on this Thursday night, I was the only one in the theatre. I figured, if they were going to play the movie, they should play it for someone. If I were to make a list of which characters are not at all believable, the list would be very long. It would include, essentially, everyone in this movie. Even Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd are bad and Blake Rayne plays “fat Elvis.” To be fair — there is no sex, violence or four letter words. But some of the faith-based messages…and faith-centric dialog…are really cringe-worthy. This could have been an interesting, even emotional, story – but not the way it’s told.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 