Problem: negative
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Answer: It's interesting how 90% of the high-vote reviews are all comprised of "*random username*" from "United States" (no state pride??) who all say more or less the exact same thing with the exact same grammatical style and all with the exact same complete lack of taste in movies. I would delve further into this suspicious trend, but alas, this is a review of the movie, and not the reviews themselves.

Let me start by saying that I am both a Christian and a true avid movie fan. This means I have seen a great many movies, from good to bad, and can wholeheartedly claim that Facing The Giants is, in fact, NOT a good movie. It has good intentions, but fails to meet many (if any) basic standards that I associate with a quality filmgoing experience.

The Acting: Mostly Terrible, Palatable At Best. Hearing that most were apparently volunteers does not at all surprise me.

The Dialogue: Clumsy, cheesy, the script comes off as a long version of some cheesy skit you'd see performed in Sunday School or youth group function. The Rave Review Robots revel in the absence of "meaningless words", but the cold hard truth is that such words are a part of the real world, and the complete absence of it is palpable. Let's just say the mean ol' head coach of a team in a State Championship game would have a lot more to say than "OH NO!" when things are not going his way.

The Plot: Mind-bogglingly predictable. It has been commented that this movie is "not a Hollywood cliche", and yet it's like it was pulled directly from Making An Underdog Sports Movie For Dummies (including the mandatory quasi-romantic subplot for the ladies) and just had a Christian-themed coat of paint slapped on it. I'm not lying or bragging when I say I had almost every major detail in both the plot and subplot pegged immediately upon their inception. Only someone who has never seen a decent sports movie in their whole life would be emotionally stirred by the story presented here.

The Directing/Editing: It, too, was patterned almost exactly after the generic Underdog Sports Movie template. Still, acting aside, there weren't many noticeable goofs, so at least Facing The Giants was technically competent.

The Message: Ask Jesus and He will grant all your wishes. Part of me hoped that this movie would end in the team's eventual defeat to really emphasize the whole "If we lose, we praise You" part, because in the Real World, you WILL fail at one point or another and it's good to be prepared for that. But in the world of Facing The Giants, if you fail, clearly someone either screwed up or is cheating. Another interesting question being, what if the Eagles came across another team that had gotten religion? Would they be caught in an endless loop of miraculous plays and last-minute saves, or would the universe simply have exploded?

The Bottom Line: For the hardcore conservative Christian Parents crowd lamenting the evils of Hollywood, Facing The Giants will be another mediocre-at-best Christian film to hold up on a pedestal as the preferred model for modern film-making. For everyone else, the effects will range from boredom to a burning desire to be watching something else. And a warning: Any attempt to show this to non-Christians will lead not to conversion, but to derision. I give this two stars, one for the one scene that did not have me rolling my eyes, and another for basic technical proficiency on a low budget.

Problem: positive
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Answer: Don't mistake "War Inc." for a sharply chiseled satire or a brainy comedy full of inside jokes for news buffs. It isn't.

This is an old-fashioned screwball comedy, with ridiculously coincidental plot twists, stock characters (given some depth in fun performances by John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Marisa Tomei and Hillary Duff) and a straightforward approach to the political content.

You see, the filmmakers' political points are things nearly all of the country already knows are true. Yeah, we understand that the corporations profiting off the war are corrupt, inept pigs, the political leaders in charge of it are even more inept buffoons, and American imperialism has never looked crasser and more out of touch than it does right now -- but none of that is the point.

Here, all of that noise is the setting that they lampoon -- sometimes in genius ways -- as the backdrop for a silly romp, as John Cusack's character (the hit-man with a heart) tries to change his life with the help of the do-gooder journalist who doesn't trust him (Tomei) and the young Middle Eastern starlet who wants to call off her marriage (Duff). Cusack's sister, Joan, plays his assistant with an almost cartoonishly enthusiastic quality. Ben Kingsley seemed to me wasted in his smaller part as a ruthless CIA boss.

That's all, and it works. It's simple fun, but if somehow you can't see reality and you think the war is going well and everyone involved with it is doing a good job and there's no corruption and people in the Middle East wish our Western culture would supplant theirs, then you might not find it as funny.

For all the rest of us, it was a light comedy with a political edge.

Problem: positive
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Answer:
I've heard people who say this movie is dull dull dull. I don't think they were watching the right movie. This isn't the prototypical action movie, thank God.

This is a psychological drama about the rookie and his mentor that just happens to be about killing people. In this way it works extremely well, with terrific performances from Berenger and Zane (who doesn't sleepwalk through the movie like he has in other roles - he actually looks like he's acting).

I was disappointed with the action towards the end - a lot of it didn't make much sense and was unsatisfying given the buildup from the rest of the movie. But watch Zane's face as he panics, alone, while Berenger does the dirty work.