As summer starts to come to an end, people start going back to work and school, so it's time to start getting serious about life. What could be a better time to bring us yet another inspirational film in the form of "God Bless the Broken Road"? Inspirational or faith films have become an integral part of the movie going experience with films such as "Fireproof" '08, "Soul Surfer" '11, "A Dolphin Tale" '11, "God's Not Dead" '14, "War Room" '15 and the like, that Hollywood has caught on and are willing to cash in on people's need for something bigger than they are.
This tells the story of a young mother, Amber Hill (Lindsay Pulsipher) who loses her husband in a military ambush in Afghanistan and struggles to raise their young daughter, Bree (Makenzie Moss) in his absence. Two years later as she still grieves, she subsequently meets a stock car driver, Cody Jackson (Andrew Walker) who works for the town's expert mechanic, Joe Carter (Gary Grubbs) and, through Cody, slowly starts to come out of her self-protecting shell. This film combines elements of faith, country music and stock car racing while paying tribute to those who serve in the United States Military.
Others to round out the cast are Kim Delaney as Patti Hill, Amber's mother-in-law, Robin Givens as Karena Williams, Jordin Sparks as Bridgette, LaDainian Tomlinson as Pastor Williams, Arthur Cartwright as Mike Nelson and Madeline Carroll as Hannah.
This was directed by someone who truly loves inspirational films, Harold Cronk ("Jerusalem Countdown" '11, "God's Not Dead" '14, "Pirate's Code: The Adventures of Mickey Matson" '15, "God's Not Dead 2" '16, "The Adventures of Mickey Matson and the Copperhead Treasure" '16) plus shorts and a video. When people are going through transitional events in their lives, this director has an innate ability to show his audience what's really going on with these characters by the way they act and react to life's trials. It will be quite curious to see how he has handled his "Unbroken: Path to Redemption" which is completed and due to release this year. It was adequately written by Cronk and Jennifer Dornbush based on a story by Andy Fraser and Liam Matthews. This is where this production had its issues. Cronk has the lion's share of the writing experience here, and certainly where he reigns as the director he is, he definitely lacks in the writing arena. Maybe because he hasn't been handed the story ideas that test his writing ability or maybe he hasn't written enough--not sure, but this film starts out with several slow areas attempting to find a film here, and then slowly the movie starts to gain momentum and it begins to get interesting, but it takes way too long in getting there. And, as with other inspirational films, this definitely slides into predictability in how the plot is conveyed. Predictability certainly is something we find in these types of films, but this seemed stamped out--almost trite. The best thing about this is how people finally leaned on their faith to get them through their different trials and this was conveyed to its audience well, even if they had to go through their own personal hell to get there, but isn't this true of us all?
Whether you're a Christian or not, there is something for everyone in this story. Even if it's not executed greatly, the message is still spot on which we all can still learn from. And learning new things are something we should be striving for in this world.
Out of 4 Stars: 2.5 Rated: PG 111mins.
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