Facing the Giants

2006 family football movie

Rating: 1/20

Plot: A struggling high school football program faces yet another losing season, much to the disappointment of the players, their parents, the administration, and the coach--a loser in his sixth year. He's not just a loser of a coach either. He drives crap, lives in crap, and, due to a problem with his junk, can't get his wife pregnant. His team, the Eagles, drop their first three games, and he finds out that people are conspiring to replace him. Rightfully so. He's a loser. However, when a soccer player with a crippled father and Jesus Christ Himself join the squad, everything changes.

When I found out that this was financed entirely by a Baptist church somewhere in George, I almost wanted to bump it up a few rating points. Then I remembered that I had just watched one of the most offensive movies I have ever seen in my entire life and kept the 1. This is so over-the-top religious (the central message seems to be that if you love Jesus and pray, you will get improbable football victories, brand new trucks, raises, and pregnancies) that it nearly seemed like a parody. Predictable, trite, sappy, sticky, cliched, and agonizing, this treats the viewer like an idiot and takes no prisoners in the war on common sense. There's a terrible script, acting that makes the script look even worse, and a feel that makes it seem like you're not only watching an after-school special but actually living one. There are twists and turns, but it's sort of like somebody saying, "I'm going to hit you in the head with a rolling pin," and then telling you that he was only kidding and won't hit you and then hitting you ten seconds later. The movie's plot twists aren't like that though. . .they are more like the 57th time when you know that you're going to get hit with the rolling pin even though he told you he wasn't going to hit you all because of what happened the previous 56 times. I did laugh a few times--once inappropriately (spoiler alert! nevermind. . . if you actually see this, you will know what is coming) when the kid with the crippled father gets ready to do exactly what you knew he would from the first moment his character was introduced while his father (are you ready?) stands up to cheer on his son. Simultaneously, God makes the wind stop blowing to make a field goal attempt a little easier. Nearly simultaneously, Jesus gets the coach's wife pregnant. Miracles, man! Actually, the true miracle is that God allowed this movie to be finished. God Himself would surely be offended at how his message has been bastardized. Seriously, if I see a movie this year that is worse than this one, I will take my own life before it's over. And if I ever get the opportunity to meet anybody involved in the production of this movie, I will spit on him relentlessly.

I was forced to watch this at school, so there isn't a real picture. I would have looked something like this though. (Special note: I have worn this tie 15 straight school days.)