Facing The Giants: A Review of the Low-Budget Faith-Based Film

For some, films based on traditional values and with feel-good endings are like nails on a chalkboard. If you fit in this group, you won't like Facing the Giants, a low-budget faith-based film made by Sherwood Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. The movie is unambiguously and shamelessly committed to faith and family in general, and evangelical Christianity in particular. And this is no doubt why many critics have panned it.

The movie follows Christian high school football coach Grant Taylor. Taylor, when we are first introduced to him, is a victim of Murphy's Law. Everything is going against him. He is unable to have children, underpaid, is plagued with perpetual car trouble, hasn't had a winning football season ever, and is in danger of losing his job. Even his house smells bad!

On the verge of losing what little he has left (namely, his job), Coach Taylor cries out to God in prayer, promising that he will love, serve, and glorify Him no matter what. Taylor challenges the entire football team to the same commitment. Obviously, this is a Christian high school. The ACLU would, after all, never let such a thing happend in a public school. Anyway, Taylor's recommitment to Christ triggers a school-wide revival and a turnaround in not only the school's football program but in numerous families (including his own).

The film leaves no emotional stone unturned. If you relax your defenses, you will be taken on an emotional roller-coaster that you might not soon forget. Even if you are not a Christian, you can't help but be inspired by the film's celebration of drive, discipline, and persistence. Facing the Giants is like a Zig Ziglar seminar on steroids.

Critics have panned Facing the Giants for basically three reasons. First, the acting. If the comparison is to high-budget pictures with experienced and professional actors, this criticism is understandable. Some of the acting is obviously contrived and amateurish. But it is not cheesy and many critics have been much too harsh in this respect. In fact, one can detect more than a little elitist snobbery.

The second area of criticism pertains to production quality. Again, this is unfair. Facing the Giants should not be compared to movies with multi-million dollar budgets. Facing the Giants was made for about $100,000, and the production quality is more than respectable for that amount. Don't go thinking this is will be Friday Night Lights or Remember the Titans, but it's not Johnny in the backyard with a Camcorder either.

The third area of criticism quite simply has to do with the film's values. This is a Christian movie, and it does nothing to hide that. Nor should it. Unfortunately, since it is a Christian movie, it is a target for the "culture elite," the free-thinking types who make their living in the arts and entertainment community. The film's salute to faith in God and wholesome family, conservative values doesn't do well in that community. Thus, the film has been panned.

Fortunately for the makers of the film, it's done well (proportionately speaking) where it counts - at the box office. When it comes out on DVD (and that's sure to be soon), be sure and get a copy.