Review of Machine Gun Preacher (2011) by Taylor H — 23 Jan 2013

Machine Gun Preacher is a tough movie to watch. It's about Sam Childers, an actual person from the U.S. fighting for orphaned children in Sudan, Africa. Sam is not a likeable character when we meet him but he find his faith. It is through the church he find his way to Sudan. Initially to do something good with his life, that has been mostly wasted up to this point.

The beginning of film is almost unnecessary and we get slapped with all the bad things Sam is doing. Then, religion enters his world. Now we see a new man. A man on a mission. The rest of the film is excellent along with the music that accompanies it! A montage of all his wrong doings during the opening credits would have sufficed because the film's focus is on Sam, the "white preacher" in Sudan. I think it's more important to briefly show how religion turned his wayward life around but that aspect of the film is down played (I ask: then why call it Machine Gun PREACHER?).

Against all odds he is able to build an orphanage and in so doing takes up their cause. What is shown is scarier than any horror movie out there because it's a brief look, from behind the veil of fiction, at a part of our world. The level people will stoop to to gain power is both unimaginable and horrific. The worst is how children are used to carry out militaristic objectives. The violence depicted is unforgiving and handled expertly by director Marc Forester (Monster's Ball, The Kite Runner, Quantum Of Solace). Sam's message is age old: if we do something right and good in this world does it matter how we get there? Like I said a tough movie to watch but a story well worth telling.