Machine Gun Preacher DVD
Starring: Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon, Kathy Baker Director: Marc Forster
Rating: 3/5
Gerard Butler has been starring in some god awful comedies of late so Machine Gun Preacher is a completely different role for the actor.
Sam Childers was a violent, drug-dealing biker whose faith leads him on a path to East Africa, where he finds his true calling as a machine gun-wielding protector of hundreds of refugee children.
Following a brutal incident, Sam’s loyal wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) encourages him to turn to God and he resolves to change the course of his life.
Renouncing his hell-raising ways, Sam journeys to Sudan as a missionary to help with the relief effort.
First of all it is great to see Butler taking on a more complex role than what we have seen of later as Sam really does go on a major journey and transformation throughout the film.
Sam is a character who is out of control at the beginning of the movie before he finds a calling that he can put all of his efforts in. But his old personality rears its head as he struggles to cop with what he sees in Africa.
And while it is a gritty role for Butler the actor doesn’t quite pull off the complexities of this character - you have to wonder what would have happened if this role had been in the hands of a far more experienced actor.
Having said that Butler has a really good stab at it and it’s a decent turn from the actor, it’s by far one of his most interesting roles to date.
There’s also a great performance from Michelle Monaghan as Sam’s long suffering wife, who is also his greatest supporter as he tries to do his work in Africa.
It’s a tempestuous relationship between the pair and there is a real fire and flair between Monaghan and Butler that works really well. Sadly Michel Shannon is desperately under-used.
Machine Gun Preacher is a movie that tries to highlight the issue of child soldiers but it just doesn’t go far enough. This movie had the potential to be a really hard-hitting film but the script just falls a little short and it is perhaps not quite the message movie that it could have been.
There are also some major pacing issues; there are moments of real intrigue and heartbreak but then there are periods that really are quite dull - Forster and the script just fails to engage for the full 123 minute running time.
Forster has delivered a beautiful looking movie and he has used the backdrop of where they filmed to great effect.
While machine Gun Preacher sets out with great intentions to tale an intriguing true story as well as highlight a major problem this movie just falls short of reaching those goals - this is an opportunity that really has been missed.
Machine Gun Preacher is out on DVD & Blu-Ray now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Gerard Butler