God's Club (2016)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good concept, poorly executed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Trying to follow Christ is not about getting in other people's faces and shaking them up. Why couldn't the Youth Bible Study club have been held AT HIS HOUSE??? Respect the separation of Church and State and the feelings and intelligence of the people around you. This movie made everyday people opposed to religious clubs in schools look like idiotic sociopaths.

The title says it all, God's Club. Join and/or support the club and God loves you. Don't think it has any place in public school than you are an enemy of the infinite Creator of Time, Space, and the Universe. Not someone you want mad at you.Allison MacInnis and her husband Stephen Baldwin are teachers at a local high school somewhere in the Bible Belt. After a contentious school board meeting where her proposed Bible Club is discussed the two leave to go home and they are broadsided by another vehicle. MacInnis dies at the scene and Baldwin after an extended period of grief agrees to carry on. Of course those meanie secular humanists like Lorenzo Lamas oppose this because they see it as just a tool for evangelizing their kids.Guess what, it sure looks like what Baldwin is doing is evangelizing the youth. Even Lamas's own son Nic Luken who is on anti-depression meds is buying into it. Of course the fact he's fallen for Baldwin's daughter Bridget Albaugh helps.My belief is that if Christian kids want to have a Bible study club after school that's their business. But somehow I doubt that this same school is sponsoring a Gay/Straight Alliance group there. Gay kids are deep in the closet in this place no doubt. I'll bet Baldwin wouldn't want a GSA in his school. Probably Lamas wouldn't want one either.It's the same fundamentalist message you see in so many of these films. We're the truth faith and we've got a duty to convert the world. You don't like it God will nail you good in the afterlife.The sad thing is so many people buy into that in real life.

Another outstanding faith-based movie. Stephen Baldwin is an excellent actor who has been in quite a few Christian movies. A lot of times there are Christian movies that have sub-par acting. This is definitely not one of them. I appreciate the story line of the movie as it's something that our culture has endured for decades. Yes, it is a bit predictable in some parts yet it's still a fantastic movie to watch. I liked that they showed the main character as a real person, dealing with raw emotions.If you're a believer in Jesus then you should really enjoy this movie. If you're not a believer, then be prepared to meet Jesus through this movie.

For some reason this was on Netflix and for some other reason my lady decided we should watch it so we could have a laugh at the expense of discount God's Not Dead. And make no mistake when I write those words, don't take it lightly, people: this is *discount* God's Not Dead. In every way shape and form this is about some alternate reality called Super-Scaredy-Cat-Christian-Pants land where the filmmakers see Christians as oppressed and all atheists as hard-headed scumbags who want to stop all of these good-hearted (sometimes, as in this case, seemingly broken) people from just practicing their religion in schools or colleges or who knows what else! I mean, come on, people! The problem here is that this has Stephen Baldwin. Let that also sink in: Stephen Baldwin, who has the voice of brother Alec, but his face looks like it's been run over by several angry water-buffalo and reconfigured to have the same expression all the time - even post car accident scene where character's wife dies in one of those goofy car accidents with him saying "my love" and "babe" in unconvincing ways - and he is the lead in this story that's supposed to be some inspiration pap about him overcoming his wife's death by setting up an *afterschool* Bible club. And the problem is.... huh? Oh, yeah, there's a couple of high schoolers who want to mess with the guy by making up some stuff in the Bible club, and then one guy (who you know is meant to be sexy to Baldwin's daughter because, oh God, his HAIR man!) who's father with the glued-on beard(!) is all against them because... FAITH MAN!The conflicts here are wholly unconvincing - maybe also HOLY unconvincing too! Puns aside, this is such bland material, all acted and meant to be with sincerity, but it's badly performed and written and directed with a taste for dumb montages showing, uh, jogging, and, again I must stress here, STEPHEN BALDWIN! I think I could let his less than one dimensional character/performance go if there was something else to latch on to, some actor or person with a heart-beat with some craziness or personality or screen presence (i.e. God's Not Dead, much as that is an insulting mess, has Kevin Sorbo who makes the antagonist someone to reckon with). Here everything is so soft and safe but it's nevertheless a piece of tripe on just its filmmaking - even if you agree with this message (with, well, should I argue with that, we'd be here all night), the actual *cinema* part of it, that it's a 90 minute filmed piece of entertainment, fails on those grounds.I frankly couldn't even finish this, so I can't tell you how it ends. If you get to a product like God's Club and it flatlines at minute one, odds are good it won't get a heartbeat. And lo and behold, this was unable to resuscitate even as a fun-bad movie. It's just... boring.