A very harsh oversimplification of reality. I noticed that 47% of the ratings were perfect tens. Shawshank redemption had 55% of their ratings perfect tens and The godfather had 51% so i was thinking this movie could be promising and almost just as good. That's how open my mind was to this.
After watching it today at the matinee I found out it was no where near as good as those movies. The characters weren't that likable, partly due to the lack of depth in 99% of them. The mobie felt like a trip on drugs itself because of how unreal scenarios played out. Not something you would see in reality. The acting was only good from a few. Lonnie, "white jesus" was pretty cool and kick started a great vibe and he was very attracting at first but slowly progressing towards the middle of movie you came to dislike him and at the end you feel relieved he made an exit. I nick-named him white jesus as his appearance is the portrayal of the Caucasian version of jesus christ and he chased a own personal high of his, "saving people" by baptising them outdoors in natural waters like jesus christ and also on the spot miracle healings (healing someones hearing, depression and drug withdrawals from a crippled man in a wheelchair) so as you can imagine it got to his head and his ego went through the roof quickly becoming all about him. That's pretty much it. He just ended up disappearing off to florida after the help of sparking the movement.
Greg was okay on the other hand but i felt his scenes throughout the film were extremely cheesy and extremely unrealistic except the ones about his relationship with his mom. The moments with him and his girlfriend made me cringe at times. Chuck smith played by Kelsey Grammer had to be my favorite character and thing about this movie. He did a AMAZING job. If it wasn't for him, this movie would have been a total disaster.
Everyone else had their moments but it was kind of overdone by some like Anna Grace Barlow. She seemed like she was trying so hard not to play her character but to win an oscar. Quite a lot through the movie the forced tears kept working it's way towards scenes where they didn't have to be there. It's like she never sobered up from her acid trip in the beginning of the film. With the cut and editing they were obviously fake tears. Not the genuine tears you would see from a top tier actor.
To describe this movie in a single sentence I would say "it's a wholesome version of a 2 hour long soap opera" at best. There was only a couple characters at times throughout the movie i looked forward to seeing. It has a good message about unification but the plot is very weak. The music was pretty good but nothing you haven't already heard in other films especially from 60-70s classics.
Also, if you have kids be warned, it may be PG-13 but there is HEAVY drug and alcohol use. Moments where people are high as a kite, driving, overdosing and even drunk while driving getting into automobile collisions.
All in all i feel the overall rating was much higher than it should've been so be warned. To sum everything up Jesus Revolution was pretty mediocre to me and i felt cheated because the first half hour or so was really nice then it slowly went downhill. It's definitely missing a lot of things that make a perfect 10 film.
I find it very interesting that such film can have a higher rating than classics like First blood (1982), 300 (2006), breathless (1960), friday the 13th (1980), 28 days later (2002), Patriot Games (1992), top gun (1986), blade (1998), dumb and dumber (1994), I am sam (2001) or As good as it gets (1997). The thought of it getting a rating just as high as The curious case of Benjamin button (2008) or American gangster (2007) is mind boggling. There is no way this movie is 10/10. Don't let the reviews get your hopes up like it has mine. I went into it with too much expectation so just let that sink in.
The Metacritic user rating and just about everywhere else is more realistic. Looking at the user review rating demographics you can tell they're biased here but you will always get strong bias in Christianity films.