Tonight marks the start of my 52 days of watching Christian/inspirational films.
I purposely wanted to begin with one of my favorites – Facing the Giants, a movie released in 2006 by the Kendrick Brothers, Alex and Stephen. Alex directed Facing the Giants from a story and screenplay written by Alex and Stephen.
Alex stars as Grant Taylor, coach of the Shiloh Christian Academy Eagles football team, which is located somewhere in Smalltown, Georgia. Coach Taylor doesn’t win many games. But his heart is in the right place.
Or is it?
Late one night, Coach Taylor discovers several of the other coaches and fathers are in a secret meeting discussing having him replaced (“Grant Taylor is not capable of winning!” one man says. “We got a weak program because we got a weak coach,” says another), he returns home and confides in his wife, Brooke (Shannen Fields).
“They’ve lost confidence in me,” he says to Brooke. “Why can’t I win?”
They break down in tears.
That night, Brooke wakes up and notices her husband isn’t in bed. She looks around and sees him in the study, reading his Bible. So, Brooke prays beside her bed.
The next day, out in a field somewhere (I presume in their yard) Coach Taylor reads from Psalm 18, verses 2, 3.
And he decides to change his attitude – and his life.
A few days later, after more prayer and Bible study, he writes at the top of a legal pad: “What is the purpose of this team?”
“So this is your new team philosophy,” Brooke asks him after reading it.
And this is when things begin to change for the coach…the players…and the Shiloh Eagles.
NOTE: One scene – the “Death Crawl” scene – is pivotal and inspirational. Watch for it. (Or read about it on IMDB.)
Facing the Giants is the second movie written and directed by the Kendrick Brothers. Their first movie (Flywheel) was, well, I’ll write about that movie when I get to it. Let’s just say Facing the Giants is in another league. For a second movie, and with a mostly volunteer cast of real people (not actors), Facing the Giants is first rate.
By that, I mean the writing is compelling and genuinely funny in some spots. It feels real. The direction (by Alex Kendrick) is remarkably good, with the action scenes on the football field being exceptionally exciting. And the editing is brisk.
For a guy who, at this point in his life, was a relatively newbie at writing and shooting movies, Alex Kendrick proved to be gifted at both.
And I know something about writing movies because I’ve been writing screenplays of my own for about 15 years. It’s not easy. But it is fun.
Incidentally, one of the tenets of screenwriting is that there must be an Inciting Incident within the first 10-15 minutes of the movie. The sooner the better. The Inciting Incident is what gets the movie started, propels it forward. Without it, nothing changes. Things could carry on the way the are at the start of the movie.
In Facing the Giants, the Inciting Incident occurs when Coach Taylor overhears the secret meeting. It was that event that caused him to seek change in his life.
I think I’ll look for the Inciting Incident in all of the movies I’ll watch during this project.
One of the criticisms of Christian films is that they’re hokey. Or simplistic. Or badly acted. Or poorly written. Or all four of them combined.
Facing the Giants transcends the genre. There’s something different about movies created by the Kendrick Brothers. Watch one and you’ll see what I mean.
Bottom line: I’d put Facing the Giants up against any big-name Hollywood movie.
Highly recommended.
Format: Blu-ray
Running Time: 1 hour 51 minutes
Released 2006
Budget: $100,000 (estimated)
Gross US & Canada: $10,178,331
IMDB Rating: 6.5
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 16% Critic, 85% Audience