There are two movies out there right now that reflect a Christian worldview and should please Christian audiences. Interestingly, a local secular reviewer gave Facing the Giants only a single star, and One Night with the King got two and a half stars. Actually, these ratings are probably good signs of the worthiness of the films’ content.
Facing the Giants has a simple, familiar, predictable but worthy plot. Grant Taylor is the football coach at Shiloh Christian School in Georgia. He and his wife Brooke are strong, committed Christians with daunting problems in their lives: Coach Taylor has never had a winning season in his six years of coaching, and a group of fathers is secretly trying to engineer his replacement. Besides that, he and his wife have been trying for years to have children, without success, because of a problem of infertility. Both Grant and Brooke struggle for a time before reaffirming their commitment to Jesus Christ. I won’t reveal the outcome here, but let me just say that it’s rare to see a commercial film that so unashamedly and explicitly honors Christ; The Passion of the Christ is the only thing I’ve seen that comes close to it. Coach Taylor inspires his team to rise to new heights by convincing them that playing on this football team is not about them but about God’s will for them – and that with God, all things are possible. Facing the Giants is unique in that it was made for about $100,000 by Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia, using one camera, a leaf-blower to simulate wind, and amateur actors drawn from the congregation.
One Night with the King is a new treatment of the Old Testament book of Esther. Based on the novel Hadassah: A Night with the King and produced by pastor and Christian author Tommy Tenney, the film takes some liberties with the story but doesn’t contradict scripture. It tells the story of the beautiful young Jewish woman Hadassah, raised by her cousin Mordecai in Susa, Persia, during the captivity. King Xerxes has removed his Queen Vashti for insubordination, and Hadassah (whose name is changed to Esther by Mordecai) is one of many beautiful young maidens selected to compete for the King’s affections. Guided by her faith in the Lord, Esther wins the King’s heart by her simplicity and sincerity. She also engineers the defeat of Haman, the archenemy of all of the Jews living in Persia, but in so doing she must face her own giant and risk her own death. One of the movie’s great moments comes with these lines of Esther (straight out of scripture): “If I perish, I perish.” One Night with the King reminds us of previous Biblical epics such as The Ten Commandments and The Robe. Like Facing the Giants, though, this film explicitly and unabashedly honors the Lord. That’s gratifying, to say the least.
You won’t go wrong with either of these films.
My Ratings: Facing the Giants: 3 stars (PG)
One Night with the King: 3 stars (PG)
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