Movie Review: The Firing Squad

 

Michael's Movie Grade: C-

A good story that is unfortunately hampered by terrible acting and below average visual filmmaking. 

The basic storyline of this movie is a pretty good one. It is the true story of a man who finds Jesus while on Death Row. Naturally such a story is very emotional. It is both quite sad as well as being an uplifting tale of how people can change for the better. As such there are some truly emotional moments in this film, especially towards the end. The romance in this film also works surprisingly well and has some real touching moments. 

However this is not the great faith-based movie it should have been. Many people who don't watch a lot of Christian movies criticize them for being cheaply made and poorly acted. This is not true of most Christian films today, many of which are very well made. However, this film does fit those criticisms. The acting here is truly terrible. Not one actor is actually good in this movie. Sometimes the acting in this film can make what are supposed to be very serious scenes into something unintentionally funny. The scenes with the prison guard are some of the most unintentionally funny scenes I have seen in a long time. This is not helped by very clumsy dialogue at times. There is actually some good dialogue in this film (the lines about not crying are quite well written), but that doesn't make the clumsy dialogue any better. Much of the clumsy dialogue revolves around characters stating that they don't believe in God. Sometimes the dialogue in these scenes makes you wonder if anyone working on this movie has ever actually met an atheist and has any idea how they talk or think. Even the visual filmmaking isn't that great here. The cinematography is often quite bad and very distracting. The uses of montage are even worse and almost feel like we are just looking at stock footage that the filmmakers just happened to find. 

This movie tells a good story and has moments of good storytelling. However, the acting and visual filmmaking may make this a rough watch for some.