Flywheel -- October 2007

FLYWHEELS AND OTHER ESSENTIALS

According to the Encarta World Dictionary, a flywheel is “a heavy wheel or disk that helps to maintain a constant speed of rotation in a machine or to store energy.” Now I have to admit that when I heard that Flywheel was the title of a movie I should see, I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. I needn’t have worried, though. Flywheel is a terrific movie with a powerful message about how we must give all of our heart to Jesus.

Here’s what the picture is about: Jay Austin is a dealer who owns a used car lot in a small Georgia city. Ostensibly, Jay is a “religious” man who attends church and goes through the motions with the best of them. But it’s all a sham; Jay isn’t walking with the Lord at all. He puts his tithe envelope in the collection plate but doesn’t include a check in it. He’s a poor husband and an inattentive father. Worst of all, he cheats his customers by greatly overcharging them. One day the pastor of his church comes in to buy a car for his daughter. Jay sells him a car which, he assures the pastor, is in excellent condition and is a really good buy. It’s a lie, but Jay can’t seem to keep from telling it. Things are not going well — he’s behind in his mortgage payments and is on the verge of losing his business — but he believes he has to cheat to survive. He’s trained his sales assistants to bilk the customers as much as possible.

Meanwhile, things are deteriorating on the home front, too.  His relationship with his son is virtually nonexistent. Jay’s wife confronts him about his dishonesty; he reacts in anger, and she goes to bed in tears. But then things start to change. Jay overhears his son talking with a friend, saying he doesn’t want to be like his father. At the office he watches his chief salesman dupe a young girl, but when Jay criticizes him for doing that, the salesman says it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Soon he resigns.

So why is the movie called Flywheel? It just so happens that an elderly mechanic who works for Jay has been trying to fix an old TR 6, telling him that what the Triumph needs is a new flywheel —  in other words, a new internal governing device. The same is true of Jay — he is in dire need of a new moral flywheel. His mechanic, a believer, tells him as much. Jay undergoes a painful transformation.

Flywheel premiered in 2003 and was the first film made by a group from Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia (who in 2006 released their second feature, Facing the Giants). Alex Kendrick wrote, directed, and produced Flywheel and plays the role of Jay Austin with considerable skill. The other actors, all members of Sherwood Baptist, do fine in their roles. The picture doesn’t have slick Hollywood production values, but it has something much better: Its core reflects a heart for the Lord. Your church DVD library may have it, or you can purchase the DVD or order it through Netflix. You’ll be glad you did.   

Film Rating: PG     

My Rating: 3 ¼  stars