6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.6 |
Based on the true story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing criminal who finds faith leading him on a path to East Africa. Shocked by the mayhem in Sudan, Childers becomes a crusader for hundreds of refugee children. Inspired to create a safe haven for the multitudes fleeing enslavement by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army, he restores peace to their lives and eventually his own.
Starring: Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon, Kathy Baker, Souleymane Sy SavaneAction | 100% |
Biography | 13% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (1 BD, 2 DVDs)
Digital copy (on disc)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Perhaps you remember the KONY 2012 campaign that blew up our collective Facebook news feeds back in March, attempting to raise awareness of
Joseph Kony, the brutal cult-of-personality leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, a warped psuedo-Christian militia which regularly conscripts African
children
into service as soldiers and sex slaves. The response to the campaign's video was decidedly mixed; on one hand, it's certainly good that more people are
becoming aware enough of Kony to be properly outraged, but on the other, that outrage has generally took the form of what's now been called
slacktivism—sharing and re-tweeting and blogging with smug self-satisfaction, but not taking any real, concrete measures.
Outlaw biker-gone-good Sam Childers has been taking direct action against Kony and his thugs long before Facebook was even a thing. Armed
action. The "Machine Gun Preacher," as he's known, was a violent junkie who found Jesus and had a vision to go to Sudan and build an orphanage
smack dab in the middle of LRA territory. As his sobriquet implies, Childers isn't afraid to fight back against Kony's guerrilla troops, and his Rambo-like
vigilantism has been alternately embraced and denounced by various Christian groups and NGOs. Do the ends justify the means? Is Childers needlessly
reckless? Does he have his own cult of personality? Does no one see the irony that he kills in the name of Christ those who also claim to be killing in
the name of Christ? Unfortunately, the biopic about his "work" in Sudan skirts too carefully around the really tough questions and overlooks less-
positive details, like the fact that the real Childers is a weapons stockpiler and small-time arms dealer who sells guns to the Sudan People's Liberation
Army, has his own militia, and believes God has called him personally to kill Joseph Kony.
Shot primarily on 16mm, with some 35mm footage mixed in, Machine Gun Preacher has a grainy, gritty visual quality that jives well with the film's themes and setting. (I was reminded of The Last King of Scotland, another African story shot on 16mm.) The movie's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer looks naturally filmic—there's no noise reduction, grain erasing, or edge enhancement here—but the use of the 16mm inevitably leads to a softer image, with less fine detail compared to a 35mm film. Nevertheless, this is one of the better-looking 16mm films I've seen recently in high definition. Color is dense and vibrant, with a frequent warm cast to the highlights, and though black levels can be a bit oppressive during the darker nighttime scenes, contrast is generally excellent. As you'd expect for such a recent film, the print is in perfect condition, and I didn't notice any compression problems or encode hiccups whatsoever. An entirely faithful-to-intent transfer, from the looks of it.
Machine Gun Preacher gives itself over to action movie theatrics quite often, and the film's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track backs up the visuals with potent and immersive effects. Of course, machine guns get a ton of play, and during the firefights with LRA militiamen, you'll hear bullets zipping through the soundfield from every direction, splintering wood, punching through metal, and generally popping off in rat-a-tat- tat bursts. The clamor extends to shattering glass, big explosions, and screaming children during the skirmishes, but even quieter scenes tend to feature a decent amount of environmental ambience. Minneapolis-based music production company Asche & Spencer provide a thematically heavy score, and the various cues have a rich, space-filling presence, with great clarity and dynamics. Even in the crazier moments, dialogue is clean, balanced, and discernible. The disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, which appear in easy-to-read white lettering.
Sam Childers' story would probably be better served by a documentary, letting us get to know the actual man instead of some action-hero facsimile of him. (Surprise, surprise, there's supposedly a doc coming out any day now.) Machine Gun Preacher takes a complicated guy and a complicated situation, simplifies both to black and white with only a few muddled shades of gray in between, and leaves us unsure of what to think. And not in a good way. The best I can figure it, the real Sam Childers is a well-intentioned but egomaniacal do-gooder with a love of guns who's stuck in a feedback loop of his own self-importance. I can't say that I recommend this one, but if you're interested, the film does feature a decent Blu-ray presentation and a small but substantial collection of extras.
2009
2016
2012
2017
2018
2013
2018
2014
Collector's Edition
1984
2005
2005
2005
2011
2012
2018
Cinemax
2011
2024
2007
2011
2020