DIRECTOR: Jon
Gunn LEAD CAST: Mike Vogel, Erika Christensen , Frankie Faison, Faye
Dunaway, Robert Forster, L. Scott Caldwell SCREENWRITER: Brian Bird PRODUCER: Elizabeth Hatcher-Travis, Karl Horstmann,
Michael Scott, David A. R. White,. Alysoun Wolfe, Britanny Yost EDITOR:
Vance Null MUSICAL
DIRECTOR: Will Musser GENRE: Drama, Religion CINEMATOGRAPHER: Brian Shanley DISTRIBUTOR: Pure Flix
Entertainment LOCATION: USA RUNNING
TIME: 112 minutes
Technical
assessment: 3
Moral
assessment: 4
CINEMA
rating: V14
The Case for Christ narrates the true story of Lee Strobel (Mike Vogel),
a self-proclaimed atheist and award-winning investigative journalist with the Chicago Tribune. While dining out with his wife (Erika Christensen) his five-year-old daughter Alison (Haley
Rosenwasser), is saved from choking to death on a large gumball by a
black woman. When thanked by the tearful
mother, the life-saver Alfie (L. Scott Caldwell), a nurse, promptly states that
it was Jesus who did it, adding that she and her husband had meant to go to
another restaurant but she had a God-given feeling that she would be needed
there instead. Strobel sneers at all
this, but later on Leslie would join Alfie’s church. “You’re cheating on me, with Jesus!” he says
in one of their many fights, and proceeds to dig up evidence disproving Jesus’ existence
and resurrection.
A true-to-life story
translated to film gains power when the actors perform with conviction. Those are the two big things going for The Case for Christ which easily
overshadow the movie’s technical loopholes.
The period dressing (early 80s) is on point, and the over-all acting is
good, although Forster as Strobel’s pathetic father is moving. It’s not the movie’s fault that it has earned
very few reviews from First World critics—it’s just that these (apparently
nonbelieving) critics tend to avoid touching faith-based filmmaking. And rightly so, for religion is beyond their
purview, thus their critique may be crippled by a merely technical assessment
of the film’s artistic merit.
The Case for Christ is a conversion story that highlights its emotional
drama more than its theology but has apparently pleased its target audience,
debuting to $3.9 million at the box office— an accomplishment for a movie made
on a $3 million budget. This may be
saying something about the movie-going public’s hunger for faith-friendly
films. CINEMA watched the movie on its 6th
day of showing; we were rather surprised that the handful of viewers with us
then applauded as the credits rolled—pretty unusual for a Filipino audience
(who would giggle, sigh, shriek, and swoon to a local romantic comedy, but
applaud, never). We understood then that
the applause was for the real-life Lee Strobel who since his dramatic conversion
has gone on to become a zealous pastor, authoring several award-winning books
on Christian apologetics. From atheist
to Christian apologist—that’s the story that the audience applauds, and the
applause signals the need for more edifying filmmaking. The
Case for Christ is a rich source of discussion topics: marital fidelity,
the dynamics of conversion, pride and humility, the wounds caused in the child by
absent fathers.
