Gerard Butler in 'Machine Gun Preacher' - Photo courtesy Relativity Media
The
story of Sam Childers is one of a bad man reformed, but it doesn’t
exactly adhere to the typical arc. Apparently, Childers was a
small-time biker-criminal, a snatch-and-grab guy who was in the game
for the cash and the highs (both adrenaline and drug varieties), and
he wasn’t afraid of things getting messy. After a stint in jail and
a violent encounter that goes sour, Childers finds God, lands on the
straight and narrow path and eventually feels called to offer his
brand of aid to orphaned children in Southern Sudan and Northern
Uganda.
In director Marc Forster’s retelling of the Childers narrative,
every beat leading up to the journey to Africa arrives right on cue
in standard time, but it's obvious that life was not metered in this
way.
There was chaotic syncopation and a cluttered rhythmic scheme
creating a cacophony of discordant sound. On his pilgrimage, he
wandered eyes wide open into a bloody civil war and he became a holy
warrior in support of children.
As the fighting preacher-man, Gerard
Butler has the bulk, the physical mass to deliver the message. But
he’s oddly muted, possibly by his desire to do justice to the story
when what’s needed here is a bold, outsized play — brashness both
in the action and in the moments of personal crisis — because we
need to feel the struggle that Childers endures, not simply recognize
it intellectually. Yet Machine
Gun Preacher
succeeds as well as it does because we can see beyond the carefully
worn edges of the narrative, to the ragged reality, the ambiguities
of a situation that
breeds orphans and child soldiers and must be fought by any means
necessary. Grade: C+
MACHINE GUN PREACHER opens Oct. 7 at Esquire Theatre.
