I chose to meet Disciples in the Moonlight half-way. I wanted to give it a decent score just to buck the trend of all the terrible reviews. It’s a faith-based dystopian film and I like Dystopias… just because it has a ridiculous premise, especially given current American politics, doesn’t mean it’s bad. No… it just takes being a bad movie to be bad.
It’s set in the near future where America has outlawed the the Holy Bible. The Department of Homeland Security is out to arrest anyone who breaks this law. Standing up to this authoritarian goon squad are a group of Christian smugglers who will run the blockades and evade the drones to deliver the Good Book to local underground churches.
Yes, this is a faith-based film in the Christian persecution mold. But if you go with it as a what-if sci-fi type dystopian story, it could be good. I mean, I like the idea of world-building and developing a history to explain this alternate reality where Ohio is a hotbed of anti-Christian sentiment (spoiler alert: it’s not). And, hey, it’s partially set in Springfield where they’re eating the dogs and they’re eating the cats. Sigh. American politics sure make it hard to make believe.
The first hour basically tries to set up this scenario and give us a tiny bit of preachy debate about editing the bible. It doesn’t do a particularly credible job of justifying or explaining this fantasy version of America though. I’d have loved some good historical context but they are pretty much just repeating the Christian persecution complex of other faith-based films. They’re coming for the bibles and they’re coming for the Christmas tress!
The film really falls apart in the leaden second half where we get into the “Not exactly Smokey and the Bandit” smuggling plot. What should crackle with thrills as they evade drones and run police road blocks just crashes to the ground with terrible pacing across too many subplots. I don’t need wacky antics, I just need to feel like they are gonna get caught and I felt nothing but boredom. To its credit, the actual reveal of how they were smuggling the bibles was kind of cool.
Disciples in the Moonlight isn’t that bad unless you just have your knives out… but that doesn’t make it a good movie. It’s too slow and too sluggish for its plot and they don’t do a good job rounding out their many characters (or making the villain three dimensional). The premise is silly and they don’t do a good job world-building it either. But I do give them credit for coming up with a unique storyline. Points for originality.
Score: 62