A Blockbuster rental, I chose it mainly because of the seasoned character actors in it.
It was basically as I expected and the actors definitely made the movie better than the ancient story line would allow.
A 'very special' boy named Sam (Adam Taylor Gordon) is struggling with his parents divorce due to his father's alcoholism and other issues not apparent. This pushes Sam to self mutilate, but it seemed that there was more to Sam's self mutilation than just the divorce.
Sam's father David (Brian Wimmer) takes Sam traveling during his summer with the boy and they have a car accident caused by Sam's hallucinations, seemingly brought about by the will of Ben (Lance Henrikson) close to Ben's remote country home. Ben nurses them both back to health, but David is taken in by Ben's logical approach to life's problems and agrees to stay with Ben as a handy man until they can afford to leave. Sam and Ben never hit it off as Sam detects something odd in Ben's outlook on life and the continued hallucinations make life with Ben uncomfortable.
As the weak father turns to self indulgence with the urging of Ben, Sam gains strength from the other key mother figures to forgive and protect his father from whatever Ben has planned for them.
The plot is very simple. The struggle of good and evil people constantly battle within themselves and how blind faith can simplify life's decisions when people are guided through life's choices by logical (but evil) arguments they are ill equipped to refute.
If you don't have a very good background in Christianity/Judaism you will not understand the high degree of symbolism, and the movie will seem very heavily edited. I can see it being a cultural classic for the evangelical crowd.
It was basically as I expected and the actors definitely made the movie better than the ancient story line would allow.
A 'very special' boy named Sam (Adam Taylor Gordon) is struggling with his parents divorce due to his father's alcoholism and other issues not apparent. This pushes Sam to self mutilate, but it seemed that there was more to Sam's self mutilation than just the divorce.
Sam's father David (Brian Wimmer) takes Sam traveling during his summer with the boy and they have a car accident caused by Sam's hallucinations, seemingly brought about by the will of Ben (Lance Henrikson) close to Ben's remote country home. Ben nurses them both back to health, but David is taken in by Ben's logical approach to life's problems and agrees to stay with Ben as a handy man until they can afford to leave. Sam and Ben never hit it off as Sam detects something odd in Ben's outlook on life and the continued hallucinations make life with Ben uncomfortable.
As the weak father turns to self indulgence with the urging of Ben, Sam gains strength from the other key mother figures to forgive and protect his father from whatever Ben has planned for them.
The plot is very simple. The struggle of good and evil people constantly battle within themselves and how blind faith can simplify life's decisions when people are guided through life's choices by logical (but evil) arguments they are ill equipped to refute.
If you don't have a very good background in Christianity/Judaism you will not understand the high degree of symbolism, and the movie will seem very heavily edited. I can see it being a cultural classic for the evangelical crowd.