Let me open up by saying that I am a Christian; although I struggle with faith at times, at the end of the day I can say that I believe in God. I am also someone who loves the art of cinema, enjoying various types of films. When it comes to Christian-themed films, they all seem to have one thing in common: they are terrible. They have mediocre actors, no solid story, and rely on the "faith-themed" "plot". This movie is no different.
Courageous focuses on four different families who become connected in one way or another. It presents itself as taking place in the real world, when in reality it takes place in the fictional "Christian film" world, which is why a lot of these movies fail before they begin. In order for their faith-based themes to work, they have to portray it in the real world, but are too frightened by the fact that they would drive away their conservative audience. So, because of that, they write bad dialogue and situations for two-dimensional characters.
There's a scene where one of the characters die and hits one of the families hard. The problem is that this character interacted with one of the main characters twice, and they were very short scenes. The audience has nothing to really invest with this character, so when the tragedy strikes, it feels forced. All of the real emotional scenes feel really forced.
I've seen movies with the same themes of fatherhood a million times over, done in much better films. Watch those, and avoid this at all costs. It has some merit because it feels like the actors are trying and the way they portray how a father should be is good on the face of it. However, there are no risks taken in this film; it's just bland, boring, and very forced.
Christian movies don't have to be bad. The only good one I've seen was "To Save a Life". Even though it suffered from many things this film did, it at least had something in it to try to do things that most movies of this genre refuse to do.
Courageous focuses on four different families who become connected in one way or another. It presents itself as taking place in the real world, when in reality it takes place in the fictional "Christian film" world, which is why a lot of these movies fail before they begin. In order for their faith-based themes to work, they have to portray it in the real world, but are too frightened by the fact that they would drive away their conservative audience. So, because of that, they write bad dialogue and situations for two-dimensional characters.
There's a scene where one of the characters die and hits one of the families hard. The problem is that this character interacted with one of the main characters twice, and they were very short scenes. The audience has nothing to really invest with this character, so when the tragedy strikes, it feels forced. All of the real emotional scenes feel really forced.
I've seen movies with the same themes of fatherhood a million times over, done in much better films. Watch those, and avoid this at all costs. It has some merit because it feels like the actors are trying and the way they portray how a father should be is good on the face of it. However, there are no risks taken in this film; it's just bland, boring, and very forced.
Christian movies don't have to be bad. The only good one I've seen was "To Save a Life". Even though it suffered from many things this film did, it at least had something in it to try to do things that most movies of this genre refuse to do.