Machine Gun Preacher

Marc Forster has given us quite a few movies over the years which are memorable. Not in the league of a cult movie but just about enough to leave a lasting impression. Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace, Monster’s Ball and that really cool movie called Stranger Than Fiction which I had rated as a 7 on 10. So it came to me as a bit of a surprise that the in the first half of Machine Gun Preacher, I felt a bit let down and as my movie mate in Bangalore, Kevin Mendonca, stated, “Not able to connect with it”. I think somewhere Forster took just a tad too long to get to the actual crux of the topic which was the orphanage in the war zone between South Sudan and Northern Uganda. Forster peels off layer by layer of the Sam Childers (Gerard Butler) onion. Could he have made it a bit faster and a bit more tight – I would guess so. I have seen most of his movies and haven’t found them to be ones that meander about aimlessly. Maybe he had a solid creative reason for taking it slow but I thought he could have ct about 15 to 20 minutes of the movie which lasts eventually for over 2 hours. Makes a world of a difference to the audience and critics alike.

The posters may belie your expectations about Machine Gun Preacher. I had seen the trailer a while back and could not recollect the South Sudan part till I walked into the hall. It was an eventuality before they made a movie on the South Sudan formation was the thought that crossed my mind. But it turns out that MGP was about anything but random conflict between nations. It is the true story of one man’s steely determination to not give up on the one thing that finally gives his life some purpose. From his days of being a biker gangster and drug dealer, Sam Childers came back home to a wife, Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) who has quit stripping to be a born again Christian. But Sam wanted nothing to do with it. He decided to stick to his gangster ways till he killed a hitchhiker in self defence and eventually finds the path to god. He visited Africa to do some social work but the experience influenced him like nothing else in his life and drove him towards starting the orphanage.

Trauma to the Lips, A child killing his mother, land mines blowing kids legs away, Children being burnt to death, snipers who are no more than 10 years old – Marc Forster has tried to make it as real as he possibly could. The version on screen these days seems to be heavily and obviously censored. As the movie moves along, it distinctly grows on you and you begin to relate with Childer’s statement towards the end, “If your child was abducted by a mad man or a terrorist and if I could tell you that I would get her home, would it matter to you how I got her back”? 7 on 10 yet again for Forster’s capability to keep the movie as true to life as possible and Gerard Butler’s solid portrayal of Childers.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3407191065/