Oh, Kirk Cameron.
Word has it that America’s best-known Christian actor (that is, the actor best known for his Christian movies) tried to rally the faithful to support his movie, Saving Christmas, on the web site Rotten Tomatoes. Sure, the movie bombed with critics. But Cameron called upon his fans to rebuke those pharisaical reviewers by giving the movie a thumbs-up. And for a while, according to Cameron, it worked: Saving Christmas had a 94-percent “freshness” rating by users—quite the stark contrast to the 0 percent that reviewers gave it.
Naturally, anti-Cameron-tomatometerers took umbrage and drove down the rating to, at the time of this post, 32 percent. And naturally, Cameron again called on his followers to bring out their smiting sticks. In a since-deleted post on his Facebook account, Cameron wrote:
Now the haters and atheists are coming out of the woodwork, attempting to hammer your good work (they rallied to drop your rating super low). They are attempting, once again, to ruin Saving Christmas for everyone. Look at their language, vulgarity, and spirit of hate. They can try to ruin a rating, but they can’t stop you from going with family and friends to see Saving Christmas this weekend!
Now, I am neither a hater nor an atheist. But I don’t think you need to be either to dislike Saving Christmas. While the poster is pretty awesome (love that massive, club-like candy cane, Kirk!), the movie is pretty … um, not awesome.
But while Saving Christmas snags the headlines, another Christian movie is quietly rolling to video tomorrow (Dec. 9). It’s called When the Game Stands Tall. And it actually deserves some attention.
When the Game Stands Tall focuses on De La Salle High School football—a program that, in the late 1990s and early 2000s won a staggering 151 games in a row. But the story isn’t about that amazing win streak: It’s about when the team lost its first game in more than a decade—the character the team developed and showed in the wake of that loss, and the lessons coach Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel) tried to instill because of it.
It didn’t do well during its theatrical run: Its unmemorable $30.1 million take didn’t do much to inspire big-budget movie studios to make more good Christian movies. And that bums me out. Because while Saving Christmas fulfills pretty much every negative stereotype the general culture might have of Christian movies, When the Game Stands Tall suggests their promise—that you can make a movie with Christian principles without it feeling like some sort of sermon with popcorn.
To call this movie “Christian,” in some ways, does it a disservice. There’s no Rapture, no altar call at the end. The faith we see is understated and realistic—absolutely fitting for what we might see in a private Catholic school like De La Salle: A shared prayer here, a Bible verse there. Most of the players are at least nominally Christian, and the Coach teaches biblical studies.
But that faith is the backbone of the lessons Ladouceur and his fellow coach Terry Eidson (Michael Chiklis) try to teach the young men in their charge: character, humility and a unflagging commitment to team.
“Don’t let a game define who you are,” Eidson tells the team following their first loss in 152 games. “Let the way you live your lives do that.”
And their lives—at least what we see of them, primarily on the football grid—are indeed shaped by the Ladouceur’s ideals. After the loss, the team gets new perspective when they visit a rehabilitation center filled with wounded but motivated veterans. They stop sniping at each other and come together as a team. Ladouceur wants to do more than accumulate a case full of trophies: He wants to help raise fine, principled men. The wins and losses are secondary. When a winless De La Salle faces the No. 1-ranked high school team in the country in bitter heat, Ladouceur plays his backups for much of the second half to protect everyone’s health. “I don’t care if it costs us the game,” he says.
This movie is all about holding others above yourself, the team above the individual—a remarkable message, really, in a culture that raises values independence over interdependence and revels in the laurels of glory.
When the Game Stands Tall doesn’t exactly stand alone in the inspirational-sports-movie genre. This isn’t Hoosiers or Remember the Titans, and the movie seems to even forget about some of its storylines. For instance, we get hints in the beginning that Coach Ladouceur has himself been wooed by the streak—that he’s been so busy trying to win games that he’s been a negligent husband and father. But we never see him truly recommit to his family or reprioritize his life. And as such, the movie’s message becomes a bit double-edged: Just as Ladouceur asks his football players to sacrifice for each other, so he has sacrificed for them—time with his wife and kids, specifically. They feel that loss keenly, and the dissonance in Ladouceur’s family life is never completely resolved here.
But while the movie’s not perfect, it’s more than competent. Director Thomas Carter has given us a touching, inspirational story that deserves some attention this Christmas season. With its solid cast, dynamic football segments and healthy sense of craftsmanship, When the Game Stands Tall stands, I think, above the typical “Christian” movie. And I hope that any aspirational Christian filmmakers use this movie as an example of how Christianity can be woven into a story without overwhelming it.
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