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Created Nov 17, 2012 12:10PM PST • Edited Sep 03, 2018 04:03PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Two movies in one – the demented story of a badass junkie and the inspiring story of an avenging angel. Both are about the same guy, Sam Childers, an American biker who has saved and continues to save hundreds of otherwise doomed Sudanese kids. As a kickass movie about a real guy trying to stop a current wave of genocide, Machine Gun Preacher succeeds as action-adventure and as call-to-action. Wow.

   The call-to-action is the same one the Kony 2012 phenomenon raised earlier this year, the need for the world to stop Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army from further slaughtering the men, women and children of Sudan and nearby African countries. The movie lays bare the depravity of the LRA’s genocide.

   It’s also a shit-kicking yarn about an all-American badass who knows his way around guns and who spoils for a fight, especially a good fight — the kind of guy who uses a shotgun for home improvement. Booyah.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Gerard Butler brings Sam Childers to life in frankly appealing fashion, first showing his ultra-dark side and later his redemption through Christianity and even more so through his calling to help the desperate children being preyed upon by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. Butler is enough of an actor to play Childer’s physical extremes, from the junkie-thief who ends up a murderer, to the righteous warrior who ends up killing murderers. It’s a hell of a strong performance from this physical actor and one that he will likely look back upon as a high point of his career.

   Michelle Monaghan is sweetly strong as his wife, Lynn Childers; the great Kathy Baker resolutely strong and spiritual as his Mom.

   Michael Shannon delivers one of his patented bad-seed roles as Childers’ running-buddy – at his side through shooting-up, ripping off and getting clean.

   Souleymane Sy Savane is notable as one of Childers’ first allies from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

   The cast includes dozens of Sudanese, especially children, giving it an authenticity that goes straight to the heart.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Biopics are beholden to the bio of the person they are picturing, thus partly explaining this film’s bipolarity. Still it seems that the filmmakers amped up the dirty-deeds-done-dirt-cheap aspects of Sam Childers’ story to make it play better to the Hard R crowd. As it happens, I’m in that crowd. But the film would have found a wider audience if it wasn’t so nasty in telling Childers’ backstory.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Great 4.0

    The script hardly deserves a Great, but Childers’ life story does, especially his work in Sudan. Props also for not dissing the positive power of religion.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5

    The LRA’s wanton cruelty should be witnessed by all upright people around the world. Machine Gun Preacher sears several views into the mind’s eye, especially the image of a boy forced to crush his Mother’s skull with a club and that of a woman whose lips were cut off by the LRA. When will it stop…

15. Content

16. Edge

    Horrid 3.6

    The LRA are terrorists of the worst kind – up close and personal, preying especially on boys and on girls. Children see their mothers mutilated and then are forced to kill them – their own mothers.

    Find that hard to read? Imagine seeing it, let alone living it. It’s in Machine Gun Preacher. Be ready.

    Oh yeah, the movie also gets up close and personal with Childers and his buddy when they’re deep into heroin addiction – DEEP INTO IT. Not for the squeamish.

17. Sex Titillating 1.9

18. Violence Savage 4.4

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.4

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army is a scourge unlike any in recent history. Insanely rapacious, they boggle contemporary conceptions of reality. Invisible Children, the org behind the Kony 2012 sensation from earlier this year, is a great way to help. And/or give to San Childers’ MachineGunPreacher org directly. I did both today.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.4

23. Biological Glib 1.4

24. Physical Natural 1.0