Dreadfully slow propaganda

Rating: 5/10 (18 October 2010)

Some have described this as a sports film. It's not. Only the last half of the film has any sport in it, and it's really not about that. Overall the film is about a family helping another child. The sport could have been anything, and was irrelevant to the film.
I found the pace of the film to be dreadfully slow. Probably 30 minutes could have been cut from it, without losing anything. Part of the problem can't be solved by editing. The leaden acting, from everyone including the two leads, and boring directing even make necessary scenes drag on and on. The writing is that of an after-school special or TV movie of the week.
The film is also presented as a true story. But key parts of the film are fabrications.
The presentation of how Oher learned football is false. Oher did not need to be taught football by his mom or brother. He was an aggressive player. Still, he did not throw an opposing player over a fence. The film was not improved by these fabrications, so you have to wonder why they are in the film.
The film notably omits the facts that Oher didn't raise his GPA through normal means, but instead took 10-day internet courses from BYU. All that each course required students to do was to read a few brief passages from famous works or speeches and then answer five questions. These courses provided the A's to replace his F's in English. I know this makes people seem less angelic and heroic, but this is what was reported elsewhere, and should have been in the film. Complex characters and stories make film interesting.
Regarding the airbag scene, I believe the film depicts it as the family does in real life, however it simply isn't credible. Sure, it's a nice explanation to make everyone feel better about what happened, but come on. Most likely Oher was instinctively bracing for impact, or to try to restrain SJ from hitting the dashboard from the impact he saw coming, and his arm happened to be where the airbag later deployed. If you see any video (slowed-down or not) of an airbag deployment, you know how ludicrous the claim is that Oher (a) knew it might deploy on this low speed impact, (b) knew airbag deployment would be dangerous for someone of SJ's size, (c) had time to decide to stop it rather than stopping the vehicle, and (d) was able to move in any way in time to deflect the airbag's deployment. Those bags are only inflated for a fraction of a second, and then deflate to provide cushioning, so hitting it even slightly before or after deployment is just pushing air around. I think hitting an airbag may increase or decrease the pressure in the bag at the time the protected person's face hits it, resulting in more injury to the person. It would be interesting to get Mythbusters' take on it.
Now let's talk bias. Once again, we have a movie where a white family saves a black child. This story has been told to death. There are other families in the US, and their stories need to be told, for once. But if we insist on these stories, can't we at least tell them from the child's point of view? Instead, they make this one about about Leigh Anne. The story by itself is not racist, but when you consider the context of Hollywood film over the years, things start to look pretty bad.
Last, the propaganda angle. This is quite overtly a Christian propaganda film, as opposed to a film with Christian characters. I found the repeated use of the phrase "good Christian" to be particularly offensive because it's designed to suggest that being good equals or requires being Christian, or that there is something somehow uniquely Christian about the behaviour shown. These are people who have done a good thing. Maybe they even had ulterior motives, but they did it. That's good enough without the propaganda. Similarly, the repeated focus on the phrase "with men this is possible, but with god all things are possible". This is a mis-quote of the actual phrase from Matthew 19:26 "With man this is impossible ...". It's just more propaganda, not to mention provably false. Humans deserve credit for what we do, even when we do the right thing. Last, the film ends with Leigh Anne thanking her god that some other kid died instead of hers. It's a line clearly meant to inspire, but when you think about it, is actually pretty revolting. A god that permits these deaths is not deserving of thanks.
I do give filmmakers credit for correctly quoting the oft-mis-quoted line from Charge of the Light Brigade ("do and die").