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Facing The Giants
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan C. Stevenson (1st October 2009). |
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The Film
 Read the following exchange below: J.T. Hawkins Jr.: By the way, some man called lookin' for you today. Grant Taylor: Who? J.T. Hawkins Jr.: Stan Schultz. Grant Taylor: Stan Schultz? J.T. Hawkins Jr.: Yeah. Brady Owens: Stan Schultz - isn't that a cartoonist? Grant Taylor: That's *Charles* Schultz. J.T. Hawkins Jr.: No, I thought Charles Schultz was that man that flew across the ocean in "The Spirit of St. Andrews." Grant Taylor: That's Charles Lindbergh, and it's "The Spirit of St. Louis." Brady Owens: Naw, Lindbergh is a cheese! Grant Taylor: Limburger's the cheese. Lindbergh's the man. J.T. Hawkins Jr.: No, Lindbergh was that blimp that blew up and killed all them people. Grant Taylor: That's the Hindenburg. Brady Owens: Nah, Hindenburg's where you go skiing in Tennessee. Grant Taylor: That's Gatlinburg! J.T. Hawkins Jr.: Gatlinburg? You mean like the country music group, the Gatlinburg Brothers? Grant Taylor: [throws ball] Crazy. Got it? Good. Now you never have to watch the tripe that is “Facing the Giants”, because I just gave away the one redeeming moment in the entire film. That exchange is the single moment in the whole movie that didn’t make me want to harm myself. And it’s an anomaly; the other 100 or so minutes had me sitting unhappily, starring in disbelief at what was unfolding in front of my eyes. “Facing the Giants” is a horrendous film. It’s a terrible crime against movie lovers and, unfortunately for me, it’s not the last time I’ll have to sit down to a film from writer/director/actor Alex Kendrick (coming soon, my review of “Fireproof” (2008)). The second film from Sherwood Productions, the filmmaking arm of the Sherwood Baptist Church of Albany, Georgia, “Facing the Giants” is a small movie (made for less than $100,000), with a cast and crew comprised almost completely of church members. The message it preaches is entirely an Evangelical Christian one, and the confused religious message, backward theology and misplaced tonality of faith would be an easy target for me to take aim at. I just don’t understand the mixed-up belief presented in this film, that God would give you a new car if you pray hard enough, for instance. I think that the message behind that plot element is confusing; after all, God is supposed to be something that helps you transcend that which is material, is that not the idea? But, luckily, for both you and me, I don’t need to take aim at the theology and interpretation of scripture offered here, as the film is bad enough on its own merit. Kendrick not only wrote and directed the film; he also stars in the lead role as Grant Taylor too. Taylor’s a down on his luck coach from Shiloh Christian Academy; his life sucks. His football team sucks (and he’s just lost his one chance at not being a complete failure, as the star player has switched schools). His car sucks (not to worry; this will be remedied shortly by prayer) and he’s likely impotent (again, not too worry; God saves the day). This all changes when Grant decides to stop pushing the team, letting them play for personal gain, and does his best to convince them to play for The Lord. So the film goes, playing out like a bad country song backwards, all the things that were once crap in everyone’s life is good again, all the problems, fixed. The issues with the film are numerous. Kendrick and most of the cast (largely comprised of church members) are awful actors. They read their lines like, well; they’re reading their lines, for the first time. The script is atrocious. Instead of being creative, and using metaphor to express a certain passage of Bible scripture, the characters simply read from the Bible aloud. That’s just lazy filmmaking. It’s not creative or entertaining to have people reading from a book in order to express a point. To quote a film professor I once had, “SHOW IT, don’t SAY IT!” Sadly, the “showing” isn’t much better than the “saying”, the direction is amateurish and despite having a tenured camera operator and director of photography on hand (Bob Scott who shot parts of “Friday Night Lights” (2006-Present) and “The Express” (2008) and has worked on a slew of other football themed films including “The Replacements” (2000) and “Any Given Sunday” (1999), the movie looks cheap and unpolished for the most part. True, a lot of the film's problems come from its meager $100,000 budget. But low budget or no, the film is still bad. Do we excuse the films terrible acting and lackluster production values because of its message and because this small Christian movie didn’t have enough money to hire real professionals? I don’t think we should. Especially considering that if we remove the God-talk, the main story behind “Facing the Giants” (and the part that costs no money at all; scriptwriting is free after all, especially if the director/producer/whatever else he felt like being that day is also your writer) is just a crummy entry into the already overcrowded arena of underdog sports films. With or without its faith, the film isn’t all that good. Could I be wrong? Possibly. I’m not all knowing and always correct. There is certainly a market for films like this; “Facing the Giants” grossed over $10,000,000 in box office receipts (and that’s not a typo), which seemingly proves that point. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. Just because a movie makes a lot of money (and this one did, comparatively; the budget to gross ratio puts this in an elite league of films), that doesn’t mean it’s good. It just means that the product has customers. The gross says more about the willingness to see “Christian” films by moviegoers of faith, than it does about the quality of this film. If you’re a Christian you might like this movie. (I say might because I have some devout friends who agreed with me, and think this movie is garbage, so it isn’t a guaranteed hit with all churchgoers). All others who don’t regularly attend church skip this crap.
Video
Sony’s 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 transfer, framed inside the film's original 1.85:1 ratio, is likely the very definition of average. Easily surpassing most standard definition transfers, as one would hope; this is Blu-ray after all, “Facing the Giants” is no knockout in high-definition. Detail is on the wrong side of soft with no real striking textures, and the image has a flat, murky contrast range. Also, the picture suffers from some nasty burst of source noise in darker scenes. All of the above keeps this from attaining true greatness. I’ll admit, however, that colors looks good, even if they are a bit over saturated. According to IMDB, the film, although technically shot in high-definition, seems to have been finished at a less-than-blu-ray resolution, which would account for the lack of detail and the increased artifacts. The film just genuinely appears less defined than native 1080p video or 35mm film transfers, likely stemming from the fact that "Facing the Giants” is sourced from 720p DVC Pro HD Panasonic Varicams, in transfer to Blu-ray, the image had to be uprezzed, which no doubt introduced and exacerbated the already present noise. Is the disc bad? Certainly not, as this is definitely higher resolution than DVD, looking far crisper and cleaner than anything the later format can produce. It’s just mediocre high-definition. “Facing the Giants” isn’t a failure by any means, I just wasn’t impressed by a single frame of this film; there really isn’t anything that made me say wow. In fact there were a few moment that made me frown.
Audio
Does anyone remember the Wendy’s commercial with the old lady who says, “Where’s the beef?” Surely, you do, as it’s one of the most famous advertisements in all of commercial history (thanks random 10 year old VH-1 TV special). Anyway, my point being that as I listened to “Facing the Giants” on Blu-ray, the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit) track, had me thinking to myself, “where’s the bass? And “where’s the high end?” The mix is so incredibly middle ground that it’s unfathomably dull and lifeless. Dialogue is perfectly intelligible but the soundtrack has no weighty support, no crisp high end, nothing but middling, disappointing and monotonous dynamics. Sure, the TrueHD light may be lit on my receiver but there is nothing in this film that screams lossless sound to me and because of that, “Facing the Giants” gets a very average rating. There are also two lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 dubs tracks in French and Portuguese, a Spanish dub encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 is also included and subtitles are in English, English for the hearing impaired, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
Extras
“Facing the Giants” makes its transition to Blu-ray with all of the extras (sans trailers) that appeared on the DVD released a few years back. Supplements include an audio commentary, gag reel, deleted scenes, featurettes, and a music video. Video based supplements are presented in a mishmash of 4x3 and window-boxed standard definition, 16x9 enhanced widescreen standard definition and full 1080p high-definition, with either Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1. Real life brothers and writers/directors/producers/actors Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick offer audio commentary on their film. If I’m honest, this is a fairly decent track with the duo discussing actors (most of whom are fellow church members), how certain scenes were shot and offer up an interesting tidbit that some of the game footage is actually real material from real games, edited into the film. I may not have liked the film but I have to admit that this is a respectable commentary; I’ve heard less informative tracks from tenured pros in the real movie business. “Fumbles, Funnies and Other Fun Stuff” is an overlong gag reel, which despite its awful name is not nearly deserving of damnation. It’s standard fare, but ultimately harmless, comprised, mostly, of the actors stumbling over their lines. Occasionally, a little factoid is thrown in for good measure. Runs 11 minutes 35 seconds. 16x9 enhanced standard definition widescreen. 13 deleted scenes, all wisely cut. The material is preceded by a director’s introduction by Alex Kendrick running a short 43 seconds, in which he reveals why these scenes were excised from the final print. A “Play All” option is also available. Presented in 16x9-enhanced standard definition widescreen. Deletions include: - Principal Ryker calls Grant to his office to discuss the team. Grant admits that he thinks it will probably be another “rebuilding year” and that the team is going to have to fight for everything they want. Runs 1 minute 29 seconds. - Grant has lunch with his wife Brooke. He notices David (Bailey Cave) in passing and tells him that he’s made the team. 1 minute 27 seconds. - David and his teammate, Jonathan, have a conversation about David’s family. 1 minute 19 seconds. - Grant calls around about possible job opportunities. 50 seconds. - Grant and JT talk in the locker room. 46 seconds. - Grant and Brooke read to each other from the bible, during their regular, nightly bible study. 34 seconds. - Three gossipy teachers talk about the positives changes they’ve noticed in their football-playing students. 47 seconds. - Ryker calls Grant to his office again, this time with some better news. Grant’s getting a $6,000 raise! 1 minute 36 seconds. - The GISA informs Grant that his team is back in the playoffs due to their opposition’s failure to comply with certain rules. Ironically, the title of this scene is “an unexpected twist”… sorry, but no, it was entirely expected. This “twist” happens in almost every football film and was clear as day that something like this was going to happen when the team loses their first playoff game and the clock is only reading 52 minutes into a 111-minute film. The scene runs 2 minutes 1 second. - An extended version of the NBC 10 news report. 1 minute. - A man named Cohen gives Grant a tour of the locker room. 40 seconds. - Grant has a talk with one of his assistant coaches before the big game. 52 seconds. - In this cut scene we learn that the Giants coach had the game rigged so that the Giants would always get calls in their favor. When the opposite happens in the final moments we are supposed to realize that some bigger force (divine intervention… duh.) turned the tables. 49 seconds. “Behind-the-Scenes of Facing the Giants” featurette is incredibly deceiving in its title. At first I though this would a standard little “Making of”, but instead it’s an EPK press piece that has way more film clips than insight or commentary. So fluffy it makes my Maine Coon look like Mister Bigglesworth, this is a worthless featurette. 7 minutes 21 seconds. Presented in window-boxed standard definition. "An interview with head coach of the University of Georgia Bulldogs, Mark Richt" featurette, runs 3 minutes 44 seconds. Kendrick leads a discussion between both men on faith and football. Bleh. This is another window-boxed standard definition piece. “With You: A Music Video of the Production” featurette. I was asking myself were all of the behind-the-scenes footage was during the “Behind-the-Scenes” featurette… the answer, apparently, is in this “music video.” Runs 5 minutes 57 seconds. Presented in 4x3 standard definition. A submenu marked "Previews" houses two trailers, both of which are in 1080p high-definition with 5.1 Dolby Digital sound: - The original theatrical trailer for “Facing the Giants” runs 2 minutes 11 seconds. - “Fireproof” DVD and Blu-ray bonus trailer runs 2 minutes 18 seconds. Finally, the disc is BD-Live enabled, but no exclusive content is offered. Instead, the link launches the viewer to Sony’s standard web portal, which contains a series of unrelated trailers for other Sony/Columbia-TriStar Blu-ray discs and films.
Overall
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