Review of Facing the Giants (2006) by Forrest P — 27 Apr 2010

If you haven't seen or heard of this movie, I suggest staying away from it, unless you are very religious.

Facing the Giants has one scene that was fairly decent. The rest of the movie bombards the audience with cliches and superficial messages about putting faith in a higher power to win the big games.

Which, to me, seems a little counterproductive.

Now, I did say that there is one scene in this movie that was pretty cool, so I'll get it out of the way and talk about it now. That scene occurs somewhere in the middle. The head coach calls out the token tough-guy leader who's not believing in himself and his team. The coach calls him out and they run through what I have to admit is a pretty cool sequence. That scene is worth checking out, but only that scene.

The rest of the film is plagued by terrible acting, a horrendous script, and with absolutely no surprises. What makes me a little sad about this movie is that the filmmakers were a little overly reliant on the religious aspect of this movie to sell it. I'm not against religious films, as long as they make an attempt to give us a *decent* film. But we don't get that.

The acting is just painful to watch.

But there's not even anything new with the story. The audience has seen virtually every aspect of this story a thousand times before. Every other football movie I've ever seen--from Radio to Remember the Titans--has elements in this movie. The *only* difference here is that they centered the whole movie on god. And that was their gimmick.

Seriously, they used god as a gimmick. Don't they find something wrong with that?

I do not recommend this film, and I certainly found no value from it. Not spiritually, aesthetically, or interestingly.

2/10.