Facing the Giants
Rated PG for some thematic elements.
reviewed by Christopher Lyon
It’s almost unbelievable. A Baptist church in Georgia makes a feature-length Christian movie for the tiny amount of $100,000 and that film ends up getting released in nearly 500 theaters around the country. And the movie isn’t terrible, either. This is a giant step forward for independent Christian filmmaking, and you should check it out.
The Story
After six losing years as the football coach for Shiloh Christian Academy, things aren’t looking so good for Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick). His star player transfers to another school; the team dads are secretly meeting to get him fired; the Eagles have just lost the first three games of the new season; and Grant learns from his doctor that he’s the reason he and his wife Brooke (Shannen Fields) can’t get pregnant. Oh, and his beater car almost never starts.
Total despair drives Grant to Scripture and his knees, where he renews his commitment to give everything in his life to God and to praise the Lord in both victory and defeat. He begins by changing his approach with his football team, urging his Christian players to change their hearts and turn playing football into something they do for God, win or lose. The results of Grant’s new emphasis on honoring God turns his life, the team’s season, and his marriage upside down.
The Verdict
I’ll be honest. I’m much more excited about the story behind this film than I am about the movie itself. Writer, director, and star Alex Kendrick, along with his brother Stephen, both serve as associate pastors at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia. Together, they spearheaded the nearly all-volunteer effort to get this film made as a ministry of the church. (It’s a follow-up to “Flywheel,” a widely distributed 2003 film made for $20,000.)
They invested in a high-quality video camera and a top-of-the-line Mac computer for editing. They rented lights and sound equipment, as needed, and got some help from a pro cinematographer shooting the realistic high school football scenes. And then they recruited volunteers from their church and the church’s high school to support and star in the film. I’m happy to report that the results are amazing.
No, it doesn’t look like a $20 million Hollywood production. “Facing the Giants” feels like an independent movie, and most of the acting, especially, feels like it’s being delivered by volunteers. But while the film is unapologetically Christian (and most likely to appeal to Christians), it’s got a legitimately constructed story to tell. Alex Kendrick is a solid actor; he turns in a nice, meaty performance as the coach. And several scenes are surprisingly effective leading up to the movie’s blow-the-doors-off emotional conclusion. In particular, I resonated with the pivotal “death crawl” scene in which a player comes to grip with his small expectations. And I appreciated some of the understated humor along the way.
What’s really exciting is that “Facing the Giants” pushes the bar up another notch for Christian filmmakers. Too often, Christian movies just cannot compete artistically with secular films. As Alex Kendrick told Christianity Today Movies, “Getting those wonder images out of your head and onto a screen is unbelievably difficult.” One barrier is technical and financial; “Facing the Giants” demonstrates that Christian filmmakers can overcome that hurdle. Hopefully, that will encourage other movie-making believers to take the baton and start turning out some films that are as artistically compelling as they are spiritually challenging and “inspirational.”
You might have heard about some of the controversy over the film’s PG rating. Apparently, the MPAA originally suggested that the rating had to do with the film’s focus on “Jesus only” Christianity. They later changed their explanation that the “thematic elements” given as the reason for the rating had more to do with the frank discussion of infertility and some crunchy football action. There’s no sex, language, or non-football violence in the film, but the PG rating fits just fine.
Worldview
[Warning: Small spoilers ahead!]
The big, broad messages of “Facing the Giants” feel like they could have been delivered by your youth pastor. When you’re facing hard times, make sure that you’re not holding anything back in your commitment to God. Make it the point of every area of your life to honor Him. Check the attitude of your heart before you start looking to make changes to your circumstances. Praise God whether you win or lose, because He is God. Oh, and honor your parents. You can’t go wrong with any of those solidly biblical ideas. And we see onscreen how following God in this way turns out for the good of every believer in the film.
A few Christian critics have suggested that’s a problem. Turning to God does not always result in getting everything in the world you could hope for. Sometimes, He seems to pour out physical, material blessings in abundance. But sometimes those closest to God don’t win the big game. Sometimes, the faithful, infertile Christian couple never experiences pregnancy. Sometimes, close friends betray you and never apologize.
Alex Kendrick is quick to point out that he does not believe in a “name it and claim it” theology, the idea that God always gives outwardly “good circumstances” to those who truly seek Him. He just wanted to tell a story, he says, in which one man receives absolute blessing from God. And it’s fun to see the coach get all those good things.
However, I can see how some viewers would get the wrong idea that following God is the way to make all your deepest wishes come true. And that’s just wrong, of course. James 1 makes it clear that what God wants most for us is to trust Him more, so He allows the trials to pile up on us to grow our faith. He says we should call those hard times “joyful” because they bring us close to God again. In fact, a quick survey of the Christians you respect most will reveal that God brings both good and very difficult seasons to those who walk with Him. It might have been more interesting to see if coach and team really would have praised God in defeat.
But it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. “Facing the Giants” is still a movie, and sometimes you just want a movie to end happy and make you feel good. This one does that. For one thing, it makes me happy about the next group of Christians with a story to tell who are right now saying to themselves, “We could make this into a great movie. Let’s do it.”
Questions
• What is your normal reaction to the idea of “Christian movie”? How does “Facing the Giants” compare to other Christian movies you’ve seen?
• What did you think of the technical aspects of the film -- lighting, sound, cinematography, etc.?
• If you could make a movie about anything in the world, what story would you tell? Why?
• Of all the movies made, a very small percentage are really, really great. Why would anyone work so hard to try to make a good movie?
• Do you think movies are a good way to communicate biblical truth? Why or why not? Are “Christian movies” a good tool for leading others to Jesus?
• Did you think the football action in “Facing the Giants” was believable?
• What did you think about all the good things that happened for the coach after he re-committed his life to honoring God? Have you ever had that experience? Have you ever had the opposite experience?