Fireproof...

In all honesty I was not planning on writing a review for Fireproof. The reason was that I know how sensitive people can be when you call a Christian Movie bad. There is always some people who think it is a sin to critique a movie, call out bad acting or bad writing. So in the interest of not lying, and halting unnecessary rage filled blog debates, I preeminently decided not to review the movie. All of this was however, before I saw it.
Before I start I want to define a term. Christian Movie. When I say Christian Movie I am not referring to major Christian Blockbusters like Passion of the Christ or Chronicles of Narnia. I am strictly referring to low budget, independent Christian films. Anything made by Cloud Ten, Anything made by Sherwood, and all other straight to DVD movies. With that being said Fireproof was far better then I thought it would be. This says a lot, because when it comes to Christian Movies, the glass is always very empty.

The first thing I liked about Fireproof was the fact that it was heavily engaging. This is something that Christian Movies never do. Most Christian movies give you a very boring story that ultimately never makes you care about anything other then asking when the movie was going to be over. This was not the case with Fireproof, the general storyline was very captivating and engaging. The characters were normal enough to allow you to show genuine concern. The story was realistic enough and separated by adventure scenes to keep you fully focused through out the entire movie. In fact I had to go the restroom the entire time but waited it out because of shear curiosity as to what was going to happen after each scene. I never once thought to ask when the move was going to be over and was sort of sad when it was.

This is by far Kirk Cameron's best acting role. It was incredible. He cried real tears, he showed real anger and pride. It was awesome...However, it does not matter how good your acting is when the scriptwriting is something to be desired. That's right of all the good things in this movie, the Scriptwriting was not one of them. Don't get me wrong the general storyline was great, the direction great, but the dialogue was normal. This is something us Christians need to work on. It is a challenge...and I'll give you an example.

In the beginning of the movie unregenerate Caleb is very angry at his wife. He then says some words that if this were a secular movie would not have been clean. Now, they should not, nor am I ever alluding to the fact that there should be swear words in the movie. There should not be. But this is where creativity comes in. I am not even saying strong words should have been used. But when an angry unsaved person is yelling such nice words to his wife while spit is flying down his mouth it just causes me to chuckle at the absurdity of it and comes off as cheesy.

This is where creativity comes in. How can we portray that anger and hostility without saying words at all, maybe an outside shot looking in though a window of him yelling at is wife. Just suggestions. It's hard. I was reading some Christian on RottenTomatoes who said he refuses to see "clean" Christian movies because spirituality is dark. Now he was trying to reason his way into seeing blasphemous movies for the sake of finding spiritual truths. Which is absurd. But I think he was right about something...before someone is saved, they are in darkness. I think Christian filmmakers need to get together and accurately think of how that darkness can be portrayed without causing people to sin and setting new heights in creativity the secular world would esteem. After all we do have the Creator of Creativity on our side...

Now with that being said the scriptwriting was not a major issue in the whole of the movie because it was so engaging, it was also very funny. In fact there were some scenes where I laughed harder then any movie I have been to in a long time.

All together this movie was very balanced. The Gospel presentation was amazing. The good parts made the bad parts dissapear and it is a movie I am proud of. So congratulations to all the people at Sherwood and thanks tremendously to all the volunteers that made this movie happen.

Please list your comments below. I would like to know your opinions.