Review of The Case for Christ (2007) by John S — 09 Apr 2017

A Truly Good Faith-based Film.

I believe I am being fully objective when I say that THE CASE FOR CHRIST is one of the best Christian films I can remember seeing in quite some time, right along with another good film called RISEN. The actors were solid-I really liked the two leads, Mike Vogel & Erika Christensen-and the filmmakers did a very nice job of capturing the look & feel of the 70s (right down to the Freakies cereal box from one of the more obscure cereals of the time), even though the film's budget had to have been minuscule. Overall, quite effectively done and I respect the production team for its efforts!

I hate to admit it, but I rarely find Christian films to be solid enough to cross over to general viewership. However, this movie manages to do so. Non-Christians need simply be open-minded and understanding enough to accept that there will be some Christian-centered moments in it, which, of course, only makes perfect sense given the film's nature. To set back on one's heels at such moments in this film is, I think, a betrayal of prejudice. Although, I will confess that I would like to have seen a couple such moments directed just a bit differently in order to soften any potential squirming that hard-nosed viewers might engage in due to bias or the like.

Something else I was impressed by was the fact that non-believers were not treated in a negative light. Two solid cases in point are Faye Dunaway's and Brett Rice's characters. I felt the approach to individual views and positions was thoughtful and honest.

I am employed at a post-production company in southern California, and we've been doing some work for Pure Flix on digital files relating to this film and when I was working on the trailer I sensed something more rich, more solid than that which is observed in many Christian films. I was actually quite struck by Mike Vogel's portrayal of Lee Strobel (the real-life individual on whom the film is based) and could see that he was bringing a significantly deeper quality to his performance than I'm used to seeing in some faith-based material. Frankly, it was simply a solid and affecting performance, period. That, and the overall look of THE CASE FOR CHRIST, intrigued me and caused my interest in seeing this period film. I'm quite glad I did.