Review of Courageous (2011) by D-Slice — 28 Oct 2011

Courageous, like many of the Kendrick brothers' previous works, is truly only for the converted (myself included in that group, that doesn't mean that I have to like any Christian film that rears its head).

I can't help but to say that this movie did impress me, though. The filmmaking is quite impressive, considering its humble origins. The Kendrick brothers have proved that they have come a long way from Flywheel and proudly show off their more developed sound and production values (this is their first film to surpass the million-dollar-budget mark), but that doesn't compensate for most of the rest of the film.

While it is an improvement in subtlety and nuance in comparison to Facing the Giants and Fireproof, that does not make it subtle; it is anything, but. The first twenty-so minutes are not bad, but once Adam and his cop pals start discussing religion, it gets weird.

The film verges on being, unintentionally and with good intentions, overtly racist. They meant well, but they need a more observing eye in the editing room saying: "Do you think we should have made every single bad-guy black, and the poor characters Mexican?".

I believe that this question of unintentional racism could just be over-scrutiny from me, but look over the film again and you might find many plays into stereotypes. Granted, this film succeeds at the actual filming and action a bit more so than I thought it would, I actually enjoyed some of the action when I took it out of the context of the film, but the action may serve two purposes: a metaphor for courage in the home and a ploy to pull in audiences.

Once again, this is probably over-analyzing from me, but make note of it. Overall, the message is very powerful, but needs better delivery. Is there any other way to bring out a character's reaction to their daughters' death than through weeping only, I ask? Crying is just fine, but wasn't quite the reaction of depth I had hoped for.

All-in-all, if you are a film critic, you will while despise Courageous, a Christian, you will praise it, and if both, you may feel conflicted. This film does need to be seen by the converted to keep the faith, but without any reach to the others, it may defeat the purpose of the message it could have conveyed so well, but I knew it wouldn't be able to.