I watched this film sort of by accident, having bought it as the B side on The Omega Man DVD. The Omega Man was a bit of a disappointment - except for the beginning, which was clearly the inspiration for 28 Days Later, the rest of it is just the stuff of TV movies. But Soylent Green is in a whole other league. I bet this is one of Tarantino's favourites. There are at least 3 scenes in the film that I've never seen anything like before. Heston casually getting into bed with the "furniture" while discussing something else completely unrelated! A whole crowd of people being scooped up by a fleet of mechanical diggers! A priest taking confession and being shot by the confessor. Ok maybe that's been done since - but there aren't many films that are so consistently original like this. And what the heck is going on between Heston and Edward G. Robinson? Is this the most unlikely gay couple ever, or what? Luckily, I saw this film without knowing the ending - which apparently is rare. Then I watched it again, and enjoyed all the little clues that make the long early scenes worthwhile. A very nice script - and some great sets too. Just when you thought you'd seen everything . . .

I've been scolded and scorned by fellow Christians for stating my disappointment with this movie. I get hounded by statements like these: "I can't believe you didn't like it! It was made totally by Christians!" "Everyone donated their time and no one was paid for the movie! It was made by a church and not Hollywood. We should spend our money on movies like this! They only used $100,000 to make the film." "This is by a real church and Christian school in Georgia! A preacher wrote and directed it." So, apparently, the reason I should love this movie is simply because of the way it was made and the minimum amount of money used to make it and that is was made by Christians. That is all that is needed for me to love the movie.
Look, I got the movie without knowing ANYTHING about the background of the film. I had never heard of it and had no idea - other than football - what it was about. I watched it like I watch any other movie and was disappointed. I was disappointed in the lousy editing and lame script. I was VERY disappointed on the resolution after the climax. Don't worry. There have been other cheap movies and other EXPENSIVELY made movies that have earned less respect from me. It isn't about the making of the movie. It is the end product.
The writer acknowledges that God doesn't say "yes" to everything we pray for in the way we want, but he wanted to show by having faith, God changes our lives. That is true. However, God can change our lives and we're still infertile. God can change our lives and we don't get a raise from our job. God can change our lives and our car is still an old jalopy. God can change our lives and our house is still stinky. Why didn't he portray that in the movie? Others voiced their concern to the writer/director over the matter, but apparently, he was defensive.
I did not think the acting was horrible nor many of the landscape shots. I like the idea of going to God and recognizing His awesome power and our weakness.
The writing and directing were very weak. It is easy to distinguish this because many of the characters have no development. All we really get from the coach's wife is she is not pregnant (well, until the end of the movie). It seems as if there was only ball player that had the potential to have an interesting character and that was chopped to bits into "I have a cripple father and I can't play football well, but I'll kick the winning field goal even though I've never kicked a real field goal before." Another problem was the Christian school itself. Umm, I have worked for two Christian schools, went to one myself, and have had many nieces and nephews in other Christian schools. All in all, I've had some pretty close connections with about ten different ones. NONE of the problems that I have seen in ALL of these schools were addressed. I saw this as totally surreal in the movie about their school and wished they had shown the human factor. It would have been nice to see a dose of reality and how God can work.
I will close by stating that every work - either written or drawn or played on an instrument - shares the artist's world view. The world view that was shown to me in this movie consists of "People who pray the right way win ball games, get new cars, conceive when they couldn't, get a raise, and get their house fixed - all within a short time span." I know. I should LOVE the movie simply due to the sincerity of the people who made it. I think I should love the movie because it was well done and for no other reason.