Review of Courageous (2011) by Edwin P — 01 Jul 2012

This was one of the most fantasy based schlocky films I've seen in a while. The film tries to portray itself as realistic, however, it is anything but. It's all about blind obedience to a few individuals' beliefs in their particular understanding of the Bible. SPOILER WARNING, THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

The opening is stupid. The black guy, who is about to become a member of the police force where his truck is stolen with his infant child strapped in the car seat while he leaves the vehicle to pay for gasoline or something is pathetic (which you don't know about until he pulls the child out of the back extra-cab seat in the truck, which you also don't see it's an extra-cab truck until the wreck and the child is "rescued," intentional deception much?). Such behavior is illegal in many jurisdictions, leaving a child unattended is against common sense and explicit law (supposedly, it is codified law because people are too stupid to figure out that it's a bad idea). Why was the "future officer" not arrested on the spot? He introduces himself as a new police officer hire transferring from Atlanta, then the uniformed police officers exchange suspicious glances at one another.

The hokey gang member "jump in"scene (very stereotypical, it's as if the scene is a reification of what milquetoasty white people think such a ceremony "must" be like), the death of the daughter attributed to a drunk driver (yet you don't see much past the hospital scene and funeral, no prosecution of the drunk driver, etc.). Then the film gets really preachy with some kind of quasi-Promise Keepers nonsense about signing an oath or pledge to be better fathers and then there is the officer that neglects a child he fathered in college, something about he was a team sport member who knocked up a cheerleader (more stereotypical movie written dialogue about what it must be like since, supposedly, no one connected with creating this film would ever do such a thing, especially the gratuitous throw away line about abortion, "taking care of it," the deadbeat dad includes).

This film includes much that is bad about stereotypes and simplistic nonsense about real life and how fundamentalist beliefs regarding God somehow, tidily, solves everything, while ignoring all the complexity that real life and real perplexity of life can't ignore. Like people eating sausage who don't want to know how it's made. I know that films aren't about reality, generally speaking-especially real documentaries, however, when the whole message of the film is about ultimate reality, and using life and death themes, it's really about deception and using emotional ploys to scare or trick people into running to religion and flinging themselves mindlessly into their faith and somehow everything will have a happy ending. Nothing could ring more hollow than the message this film portends.