And, boy if you found my review of Miracles from Heaven inexplicable, wait til you read here that I went to see God’s Not Dead 2.
Yeah, paid money to see God’s Not Dead 2, the sequel to the straw-man-filled religious original film from 2014. That film was a semi-hateful and ridiculous bit of Hard-Core Christian propaganda about a college philosophy professor who required his students to write “God is Dead” on a piece of paper and hand it in before the class can begin (our main character refuses, thus he is required to prove god is not dead in class).
This new film, which contains a handful of the original’s characters, is about a high school history teacher (played by Melissa Joan Hart) who is teaching a class about non-violent protest featuring Martin Luther King and Gandhi. One students raises her hand and asks if their philosophy is similar to what Jesus Christ taught. The teacher, who is religious but never in her own class room, says yes, they are similar and quotes some bible verses to clarify that and then moves on. This violation of church-and-state gets reported, she refuses to apologize to the school board, and the case goes to trial.
Now, this movie wants to be about the freedom of belief and the church/state separation and that’s fine. The major problem is that the film chose a case that is, on the surface, pretty much just an innocent mistake. The teacher was answering a question and, while yes the church/state separation may frown on it, but it was still a short case of comparative belief systems. But this results in a huge strawman considering most modern battles over church/state are, you know, about school prayer or teaching that evolution is “only a theory”, or whatever. If this movie were honest, the case would be more realistic. But subtly isn’t on the agenda here.
This is still a Hard-Core Christian propaganda film where all atheists are mean-spirited and hateful, where two sides of the argument protest outside the courthouse but the Christians are all meek and quiet while the other side shouts with hatred, and the movie doesn’t realize that every argument it has in the teacher’s favor could just as easily apply to their side too.
All that said, this is a considerably better film than the original. It, for example, is far less mean-spirited and hateful (even if all the atheists are evil). The first film had a Muslim dad beating the shit out of his daughter for exploring Christianity. This movie “merely” makes the ACLU a bunch of mustache-twirling villains. That’s not a LOT better but at least we don’t have to see any teenagers beaten about the head.
Speaking of the evil ACLU lawyer, he’s played by Ray Wise. Ray Wise is a great actor who plays sleazy, snaky, and oily fun better than anyone. They got an actor who was hired to play the literal devil on a tv show (because his acting persona fits the bill so well) to play their prosecuting attorney. Subtly this film is not. But he does his job well and he’s pretty fun, though probably unintentionally so (it’s amusing to think that maybe the producers didn’t realize what they were doing by casting him).
Regardless, I can’t deny there’s a certain level of quality drama in the courtroom scenes of this film (yes, you can poke holes in almost every argument but that doesn’t mean its not well acted and written). I was getting ready to say it’s a genuinely good film (within the constraints of what it is) before it pulled one of the most patently ridiculous moments I’ve ever seen in a courtroom drama… it forced the high school teacher to testify on the stand against herself. She didn’t want to but the judge (Ernie Hudson!) forced her. Which lead to a dramatic moment and grand-standing by her own defense attorney in a stupid scene that could have been used for the closing argument but the movie wanted a “contempt of court” charge. It was dumb outside the realm of the movie’s obvious propagandist flaws.
I know none of this makes sense – this should be a reprehensible film on its face. It’s a movie that intends only to preach to the converted, to reaffirm to a certain audience that, yes, the ACLU is evil, that yes Christian are persecuted, woe is us. That, yes, all atheists are mean-spirited and evil. I think all this is inherently silly but I’m trying to look at the movie as a whole. Just because a movie has bad politics, it can still be a well-made film. This film almost gets there before stumbling badly in the end. Heck, to most, it’ll have stumbled from the opening credits (and you wouldn’t be wrong).
Score 76