jduncan957
Lifetime Total
1+
IMDb Member
18 years
Reviews
Last Ounce of Courage (2012)
Amusing Bit of Propaganda
I learned of this movie while watching Monday Night Raw. As an avid follower of all things out-there, I had no problem picking up on its heavily veiled intentions. When I looked it up online and saw the full trailer, I felt like I had struck ideological gold. Add the presence of Fred Williamson, introduced as The Hammer, no less, and I had all the motivation I needed to order a ticket for a Patriot Day screening.
The movie is a lot of fun, for reasons both intentional and unintentional. Some of the things that got me laughing were all the images conflating religion and patriotism, particularly the American flag with the cross on the top on the back of Bob Revere's motorcycle. There's some pretty hilariously poor CG involving exploding Christmas bulbs. Occasionally there are odd establishing/transition shots that are held way too briefly. I particularly enjoyed the David Barton moment of awkwardly identifying the son's bible to be a Gideon Bible. The broadly drawn stereotypes of the tyrannical liberal lawyer and flaming gay theater director were amusing, and I loved the absurd nightmare world they construct with the Winter Odyssey play, and would have loved to see more of that.
My strongest criticism of the movie is that it didn't go far enough. There's too much disconnect between the world of the school, which is a hyper liberal alternate universe in which children in a conservative town are completely unfamiliar with the Nativity story, and the rest of the town. Kind of like the Apocalypse series from the Lalondes, there's a certain inability to see their ideas through to their necessary magnitude in a manner that's truly believable. The moments that are blissfully irreverent, such as the alien play, stand out too starkly against the rest of the milieu.
I'm still waiting to see one of these movies understand that they're essentially working with a comic book concept and truly build a consistent fantasy world in which all of their worst fears are projected and then overcame. This is far from a poor effort, and I hope it performs well enough that there might be more films to follow in its wake.
In a curious bit of trivia, when I was reading the credits I noticed the name of Gen Fukunaga. As a massive fan of the Dragon Ball franchise, that's a name I'm very familiar with. Who knew that all the money we've given to them over the years would yield such unusual fruit. I look forward to a new faith friendly DBZ in which the trials of Goku and company are presented within the framework of spiritual warfare and Vegeta does not seek to destroy the Earth but rather prevent people from reading the King James Bible.
The movie is a lot of fun, for reasons both intentional and unintentional. Some of the things that got me laughing were all the images conflating religion and patriotism, particularly the American flag with the cross on the top on the back of Bob Revere's motorcycle. There's some pretty hilariously poor CG involving exploding Christmas bulbs. Occasionally there are odd establishing/transition shots that are held way too briefly. I particularly enjoyed the David Barton moment of awkwardly identifying the son's bible to be a Gideon Bible. The broadly drawn stereotypes of the tyrannical liberal lawyer and flaming gay theater director were amusing, and I loved the absurd nightmare world they construct with the Winter Odyssey play, and would have loved to see more of that.
My strongest criticism of the movie is that it didn't go far enough. There's too much disconnect between the world of the school, which is a hyper liberal alternate universe in which children in a conservative town are completely unfamiliar with the Nativity story, and the rest of the town. Kind of like the Apocalypse series from the Lalondes, there's a certain inability to see their ideas through to their necessary magnitude in a manner that's truly believable. The moments that are blissfully irreverent, such as the alien play, stand out too starkly against the rest of the milieu.
I'm still waiting to see one of these movies understand that they're essentially working with a comic book concept and truly build a consistent fantasy world in which all of their worst fears are projected and then overcame. This is far from a poor effort, and I hope it performs well enough that there might be more films to follow in its wake.
In a curious bit of trivia, when I was reading the credits I noticed the name of Gen Fukunaga. As a massive fan of the Dragon Ball franchise, that's a name I'm very familiar with. Who knew that all the money we've given to them over the years would yield such unusual fruit. I look forward to a new faith friendly DBZ in which the trials of Goku and company are presented within the framework of spiritual warfare and Vegeta does not seek to destroy the Earth but rather prevent people from reading the King James Bible.