User Reviews

As a Catholic Christian (yes, we Catholics are actually Christians), I have mixed feelings towards evangelical Christian movies (as I always have, even when I was an evangelical). Although I appreciate what Christian media does in an attempt to share Jesus, the results are often hokey and creates an "us against them" mentality. In this case, it's the all-atheists-are-out-to-get-Christians scenario. While there is a sense that growing secularism is attempting to restrict Christian freedom, most atheists aren't trying to outright destroy Christianity. Indeed, very few atheists are of the Christopher Hitchens/Richard Dawkins "God-is-evil" mentality.

Aside from that, these movies tend to paint an unrealistic picture of how things work. The harsh realities of life tend to get glossed over with the premise that while life is difficult, God will just magically make everything okay. Take Sorbo's character's loss of his son. He became a drunk who denied God, but no effort was shown that he needed to work through a grieving process before moving on. Instead the character has a near-death experience where he sees his son, ends up talking to his wife's pastor, then BAM--he's suddenly a Christian. The same happens when the wife is diagnosed with a brain tumor. As she is dying, she glosses over her (living) sons' fears by saying that her death will be like her "being in the next room." Sorry, but this is hardly comforting in the real world, even for a Christian. It is just too simplistic and denies the struggles that people face.

My thought is that if Christian media wants to be effective, they need to show faith being worked out in a strong, yet generic sense (as opposed to an in-your-face objective sense) with down to earth people truly working through their struggles.

As a side note, if we Christians truly want to make a difference in society we will focus more on prayer and righteous living, and less on propaganda.

Let me start by saying that I am a Christian and I love a good movie that promotes the Christian faith and what Christians are all about. It's so hard to judge these movies by reviews, because so many Christian haters will leave bad reviews just to keep the movie from being a success. That being said, I went and saw the movie for myself.

I had reservations, because I saw the train-wreck of a Christian movie last made with Kevin Sorbo (God is Not Dead). I hoped that this movie would be different. It wasn't. Let's get something straight. There's are great Christian based movies and there are horrible ones. Some of the great ones that don't sanctimoniously preach, but let Christianity speak for itself, are "God is for Real," "Jesus of Nazareth, "The Passion," and "Risen." Even low budget movies like "The Encounter" hit the right chord. Among the bad ones are the two from Sorbo "God is Not Dead," and "Let There be Light." What makes this movie bad? I think littleangelik's review pretty much sums it up with "results are often hokey and creates an us against them mentality." That and the fact that someone decided that the script must have the word "Isis" in it at least 200 times.

To start with, the movie tries too hard. Yeah, we get it: Isis is bad. We don't need to movie to constantly tell us that. Yeah, we get it: Sorbo's character is a drunk. We don't need to see him drinking five drinks at a time to know that. This movie insults the intelligence of all its viewers by thinking they are stupid and can't understand a subtle concept and that the people watching must have the point drilled into their heads until their brains spill out. They also try too hard to prove that Christianity is great. Well, guess what? Christianity is great. So it can speak for itself. Pushing so hard in such a sanctimonious manner is not going to bring people closer to Christ. Instead it will push them away. The attitude of non-Christians will be that "The lady doth protests too much. Me thinks." Even open minded people will think, "Yeah, everything I heard about Christians is right. They are elitist, sanctimonious, hypocrites." Then there is the aspect of realism. There isn't any. A drunk who cannot stay away from the bottle for any waking moment can somehow sit in front of a computer and concentrate on writing a best seller(?) I think not. An atheist goes from not believing to being a religious zealot with the flip of a switch(?) I think not. Sorbo is clinically dead for four minutes and has a serious life threatening blood clot, but the hospital doesn't even keep him overnight. Absolutely not. Then there is the character of the ex-wife. She is all over the place. She goes from being totally hostile to Sorbo (won't hold Sorbo's jacket when he is in a wheelchair and gets upset with being compared to the shrew when Sorbo playfully quotes a line from "The Taming of the Shrew") to holding him so he can sleep and accepting his proposal to re-marry her merely days after he becomes a believer.

I took a chance and really wanted to support a good Christian movie, because I heard Sean Hannity say this was such a movie. Unfortunately, it was not. The movie was merely a shameless exploitation of God and Jesus for the sake of making some money. Hannity was never my favorite talk show host anyway. In fact, I only listen to him because nobody else that's any good is on in New York during his time slot. Now I don't think I'll waste my time with this guy at all. He obviously doesn't believe in what he says and promoted this movie for the sole purpose of making a buck. How I long for the days when Rush Limbaugh was followed by the late, great, Bob Grant.

While the intent of the filmmakers was genuine in trying to depict a hard-boiled atheist transformed into a born again Christian, the results of this film were disappointing, due the shallowness of the script and an appalling set of performances that often included outright mugging for the camera.

The film's theme is to shine the light on the glory of the Lord in accordance with the Gospel of Matthew (5:16): "let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven."

The light slowly comes to stubborn pop culture atheist Dr. Sol Harkans until a near-death experience momentarily reunites him with his beloved son Davey, who died of cancer. Dr. Harkans' conversion occurs after a meeting with Pastor Vinny, who got religion while he was doing hard time in Lompoc Prison in California. In his journey from being a "wise guy" on the streets to ministering to his faithful flock, Vinny was born again when reading the good book in the pokey.

During his conversation with Pastor Vinny, Dr. Harkans experiences his epiphany, and, in the subsequent scene, he gets dunked in a baptism in a small stream. The film then becomes melodramatic with a reunion with his wife. The born again Christian then has a born again, second wedding. Dionne Warwick sings at the ceremony. But a seizure and diagnosis of terminal cancer is in store for the angelic Mrs. Harkans. This was the woman who never blasphemed in her life and would only utter lines like "You look like heck," in order to avoid using the "h" word.

Despite the second tragic death in the Harkans family, the film manages to spin the theme of how "the Lord works in mysterious ways." An interview with Sean Hannity marks the grand finale, followed by a gala experience of lighting up the world through the use of an ap.

The strangest character of all was the evangelical son, who was overly protective of his mother and insisted that the father bring the mother home by 10pm after they went out to dinner. While supposed to be acting as his mother's protector, the character came across as a psycho.

Another incongruous theme was the puzzling counterpoint to the family drama with references to the horrors of ISIS, set against the joy and good will of Christianity. It was in lines like "You cannot defeat an ideology on the battlefield alone" that the film lost all credibility and became itself an exercise in spewing ideology and propaganda.

God kills a Christian man's child to turn him into an atheist, so he can make him drink and drive and have an accident that kills him for 4 minutes, just so he can see a tunnel of light and his dead son, so he can turn back to believing in god. Not to mention the erroneous and fallacious stereotyping of non-believers. Some atheists are bad, just as some Christians are bad, but they had no problem making all atheists look like douchebags. This is the most unchristlike movie I have seen since the God's Not Dead trilogy.

Sorbo, the entire family, seem to think that an Atheist can suddenly turn to Christianity. It doesn't work that way. Atheists usually were Christians or of some faith that failed drastically. Atheists don't take anything on faith, they work on FACTS. Sorbo was once a passable actor on Hercules, now he is like his washed up character. This is very 'based' on his life having had a near death experience with a brain aneurism. The rest is pure fiction like his god is. If there was a rating of 0, I would have given it.

Ohhh man.... I want to support Christian movies...but c'mon now. This one was pretty bad. I like Kevin Sorbo so i thought it might be good. Even he couldn't make this one work. I HATE to bash Christian movies but i have to (again) tell the truth about of some of these movies. This movie was so rushed and unbelievable it was hard to get interested. OK, i need to say something here. If your making a Christian movie, and you want to entertain christians, fine, make anything about God and all of us will try to be entertained and be happy. But lets really get down to brass here people. If you want to make a Christian movie and try to make non christians wonder and think when they leave the theater, you need to have some common sense! I don't want to go on and on but here are the main points: If you want someone to believe in God and have hope in Him, please for the LOVE OF GOD, don't have the main character have lost someone like a child and then tell people you have faith in a God now and then make the movie were now your wife has terminal cancer and prays and loves God but still ends up dying a slow death also! I always watch Christian movies from the point of view of a non believer to see if it entices me to think about what is being shown after or during the movie. This one made me so angry i couldn't sit still. The acting was totally horrible! The wife and kids were so unbelievable it was hard to watch. No emotions, no feeling for the characters at any time. So the protagonist in this movie gets saved because he saw his son in a tunnel of rotating pictures for a few minutes and he says "let there be light daddy!" Thats all...? Then he comes back to earth a changed man. He goes to his wifes' pastor and gets saved immediately and right after becomes baptized. He is then totally sold out to God in about a week. Then the wife is diagnosed...well just watch it if you want. There wasn't any character development what so ever. I felt nothing for ANY of the actors, there was no time put in to feel for them. And most of all, what and where was the light...?! If a non believer sees this movie, this is how it would be portrayed: Believe in my God- Why?- Because He is the Light of the world. What for?- Well, he really wont do much for you, but believe in Him anyway.

This movie really gives people no hope. if your going to make a movie about God, please please please give the people something they will remember at least. Lets be real for a moment, Christianity is kind of like being in sales, im trying to get you to buy my 'product', i need to show you the features and benefits of my product and why you need to have it, even though you might not want it. But still, you need it. Right? Isn't this how sales and marketing work? Everyone sells the sizzle more than the steak itself. Why in the world do we try and 'sell' Christianity with nothing beneficial for the buyer? Now of course, when i say 'sell' i mean we are trying to save peoples' soul from a very bad ending. Why cant we do this correctly? A great movie could be made without any preaching at all and have people crying when they walk out. Its all in the way and wisdom it is done. Not terrible writing and acting and blaming everything on Isis and telling people to believe in God without any sizzle. You get children to come to you with candy, not medicine.