Review of The Wager (2007) by Russ B — 16 Jun 2008

Randy Travis was the big attraction to this film. Love his voice/music.

The plot I read before I watched it gave me a different impression of this film:

"Oscar-nominated actor Michael Steeles (Randy Travis) career is on an upswing ? until his personal life starts spiraling downward Facing a sex scandal, a wife who wants a divorce and a tempting young co-star (Candace Cameron Bure).

The plot on IMDB is accurate: "When the life of mega film star, Michael Steele (Travis), is destroyed right before the most important day of his life, his faith is put to the ultimate test.".

This IS a Christian film, most of which are very weak. And this one may be one of the stronger ones but it is still lacking.

My main problem I think besides some of the hack acting, was these moments where the main character appeared to be zapped and see little clues about what God was saying to him. It was just weird. Not that it has not happened to someone that way and was a way to translate it to film but it seemed sci-fi instead of faith based. I did not feel the conviction. The main character was confused and did not know what to do most of the time.

I was surprised to see an A- rating on Yahoo from 4 people. They really love something about this movie. The two folks who list this movie as Favorites rated it 4 and 5 stars. My rating of 3 stars is on the generous side. It is like most people who have seen this I think choose to rate it on faith not movie criteria. But IMDB 3.2/10 Stars with 62 votes, including my generous 6 stars.

In conclusion, it was nice to see Randy Travis, Bronson Pinchot (Balkie from Perfect Strangers) and Jude Ciccolella. But this movie does not compare to some of the better Billy Graham movies.