Film Review: "Machine Gun Preacher" (2011).

"Hope is the greatest weapon of all." This is Machine Gun Preacher. This biographical action film directed by Marc Forster, adapted by Jason Keller, and based on Sam Childers' autobiographical book Another Man's War. The film follows Sam, a former drug dealer, who undergoes a spiritual transformation and decides to go to war-torn East Africa. Enraged by the horror faced by the region's vulnerable populace, he vows to save them.

Since mid 1992, the former Outlaws member now dedicates his life and resources to rescue children in the war zone of South Sudan. Childers and his wife Lynn founded and operate Angels of East Africa, the Children's Village Orphanage in Nimule, South Sudan, where they currently have more than 300 children in their care. By early July, Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon, Madeline Carroll, and Kathy Baker were cast in an adaptation of Childers' novel. Vera Farmiga was the first choice to play Lynn, but dropped out due to pregnancy. She was replaced by Michelle Monaghan. At the same time, principal photography commenced, and took place throughout Michigan and South Africa. Childers showed screenings of a heavily-edited version of the film in churches around the world. The proceeds of which are used to support his ongoing work in South Sudan.

The film stars Butler, Monaghan, Shannon, Carroll, and Baker. Butler and Monaghan as Sam and Lynn Childers are definitely the highlight of the film. Their relationship is truly felt, which makes the mission that encompasses Sam all the more powerful.

Despite some fine performances, Machine Gun Preacher is just shy of rendering the spirit of the novel on to the big screen. A shockingly bungled opportunity for greatness and quite possibly the most disappointing film of 2011. Forster can't solely blame the impossibility of condensing the breadth of a dense novel into two hours of screen time, but his own shoddy realisation too. Nevertheless, the film serves as a reminder that hope is universal; that, regardless of our cultural differences, humanity will always find common ground in devastation. It is a remarkable story with tremendous human interest, about people we think we've figured out, but about whom we actually know next to nothing. A skilfully made and subtly powerful film, with a disarmingly human protagonist whose efforts seem all the more real, given his weaknesses and the movie's authentic feel. The narrative is a tapestry entwined from personal and political threads; the result is emotionally overwhelming. The film will no doubt warm the hearts of its intended audience, even if its nature is one of dubious flattery. The film is solid and competently made, but then those are words one always uses when a piece of art falls short of greatness. Moments feel disappointingly scripted, so it's especially good news that many of its characters do not. Forster's over-done melodrama that doesn't so much open our eyes to Afghanistan as reinforce everything negative we've already suspected. In the end, the film is a good but not a great one of a good but not a great novel.

Simon says Machine Gun Preacher receives: