Christian filmmaking's answer to "Birdemic," this $10,000 catastrophe gives new meaning to "holy crap."
The premise: the Second Coming is upon us. Jesus has returned to our world but works undercover as Jason Crawford (Seth Gandrud), or "J.C." (Get it?) He runs a small construction company and has an employee nicknamed Les, whose real name is Lazare. Can you guess what J.C. does when Lazare dies in a car crash? For good measure, Les' sister is named Mary. J.C. also runs a small ministry that is gaining followers at a rate that Satan finds alarming. So he dispatches his minions to the Earth's surface to make J.C. quit doing that. Spoiler alert: they try to stop him but can't.
To give you an idea of the writing, I offer the following bit of repartee between J.C. and a female friend who cooks him dinner:
J.C. "This is delicious! We ought to get you on one those reality cooking shows. I'm sure you'd win." WOMAN FRIEND: "Why, thank you! I'll take that as a compliment."
In my attempt to describe the acting in this film, I went to thesaurus.com and looked up synonyms for "stiff." They included "creaky," "arthritic," "rigid," "thick," "tense," "rheumatic," "buckram," and "refractory." Each and every one of those adjectives describes each and every performance in this film (even if I'd never heard of those last two before).
Seth Gandrud looks less like the son of God and more like the son of Eddie Rabbitt. He delivers his lines in a hard-to-hear monotone that makes me think he was just awakened from a sound sleep. When J.C. delivers a sermon, he shows all the emotion of Les Crane reciting the Desiderata. (Look it up on YouTube.)
As for the rest of the performers, I'm guessing they were special- needs students pulled from a Remedial Reading class. I've seen better acting in locally produced TV ads that run during the 5:00 a.m. newscasts.
Then there are the visual effects. Writer/director Ted Jordan confused holiness with psychedelia. Much of this film resembles what I imagine it would be like to read the Bible on LSD. Images are distorted, quick cuts abound, vividly-colored montages assault the eyes, voices are modulated, colors turns to black and white, one keeps talking to God, and ultimately the whole damned thing makes no sense. For good measure, the backdrops are even less convincing than what Tommy Wiseau came up with for "The Room."
The requisite Biblical clichés are all here. At a friend's wedding reception, the wine and champagne are locked up in a room to which the janitor has lost the key. How can they possibly toast the bride and groom? Luckily, several pitchers of water are nearby. A wave of his hand, a flash of magic disco lights, and our boy J.C. has provided all the wine they need! At his makeshift church, J.C. routinely cures his parishioners of heart disease, prostate cancer, and other afflictions. He even pulls his car over to restore ambulation to some random guy in a wheelchair. That's right, folks. J.C. has performed the world's first drive-by miracle!
Though I'm a secular-minded person, I understand that part of being Christian means one must expect that God, at any given moment, could test their faith. I'm thinking the Lord would hand out brownie points to any good Christian who sits through 90 minutes of MIRACLE MAN.
The premise: the Second Coming is upon us. Jesus has returned to our world but works undercover as Jason Crawford (Seth Gandrud), or "J.C." (Get it?) He runs a small construction company and has an employee nicknamed Les, whose real name is Lazare. Can you guess what J.C. does when Lazare dies in a car crash? For good measure, Les' sister is named Mary. J.C. also runs a small ministry that is gaining followers at a rate that Satan finds alarming. So he dispatches his minions to the Earth's surface to make J.C. quit doing that. Spoiler alert: they try to stop him but can't.
To give you an idea of the writing, I offer the following bit of repartee between J.C. and a female friend who cooks him dinner:
J.C. "This is delicious! We ought to get you on one those reality cooking shows. I'm sure you'd win." WOMAN FRIEND: "Why, thank you! I'll take that as a compliment."
In my attempt to describe the acting in this film, I went to thesaurus.com and looked up synonyms for "stiff." They included "creaky," "arthritic," "rigid," "thick," "tense," "rheumatic," "buckram," and "refractory." Each and every one of those adjectives describes each and every performance in this film (even if I'd never heard of those last two before).
Seth Gandrud looks less like the son of God and more like the son of Eddie Rabbitt. He delivers his lines in a hard-to-hear monotone that makes me think he was just awakened from a sound sleep. When J.C. delivers a sermon, he shows all the emotion of Les Crane reciting the Desiderata. (Look it up on YouTube.)
As for the rest of the performers, I'm guessing they were special- needs students pulled from a Remedial Reading class. I've seen better acting in locally produced TV ads that run during the 5:00 a.m. newscasts.
Then there are the visual effects. Writer/director Ted Jordan confused holiness with psychedelia. Much of this film resembles what I imagine it would be like to read the Bible on LSD. Images are distorted, quick cuts abound, vividly-colored montages assault the eyes, voices are modulated, colors turns to black and white, one keeps talking to God, and ultimately the whole damned thing makes no sense. For good measure, the backdrops are even less convincing than what Tommy Wiseau came up with for "The Room."
The requisite Biblical clichés are all here. At a friend's wedding reception, the wine and champagne are locked up in a room to which the janitor has lost the key. How can they possibly toast the bride and groom? Luckily, several pitchers of water are nearby. A wave of his hand, a flash of magic disco lights, and our boy J.C. has provided all the wine they need! At his makeshift church, J.C. routinely cures his parishioners of heart disease, prostate cancer, and other afflictions. He even pulls his car over to restore ambulation to some random guy in a wheelchair. That's right, folks. J.C. has performed the world's first drive-by miracle!
Though I'm a secular-minded person, I understand that part of being Christian means one must expect that God, at any given moment, could test their faith. I'm thinking the Lord would hand out brownie points to any good Christian who sits through 90 minutes of MIRACLE MAN.
