Courageous is the latest cinematic opus from brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick, who previously gave the world the football flick Facing the Giants (if that title reminds you of Remember the Titans, well, that’s the point) and the Kirk Cameron flick Fireproof (which I’ve been told isn’t a comedy, this despite the fact it’s funnier than most genuine comedies). Like those movies, it’s inept in virtually every way imaginable, the work of people who obviously don’t know anything about the language of filmmaking.

Also like those movies, this one eschews story and character in favor of delivering a ham-fisted sermon. And I mean that both figuratively and literally. Courageous delivers a figurative sermon for the first two hours of its 129 minutes, a literal one for the remaining time. In other words, it preaches to the choir and then preaches to the choir. This is a movie for people who know going in they’re going to like it and will accuse anyone who doesn’t (even if that person’s opinion is based on the movie’s merits as a movie) of being anti-Christian. That being the case, I imagine you already know whether or not the movie’s for you.

It’s not for me. The Kendrick boys (they co-write the screenplays for their endeavors and Alex directs; they ain’t exactly the Coens) and I obviously aren’t on the same page when it comes to matters of faith, but that’s not what bothers me about their movies. They have no interest in telling a story, creating believable characters, etc. The “plot” here centers on five men who sign a resolution to be better fathers, to lead their families down the path to righteousness.

The movie is contrived to be one long commercial for this resolution, which you can read more about in a series of books penned by the Kendricks and some of their friends, all of which are plugged during the closing credits. They can call it whatever they want, dress it up however they want, but Courageous is little more than an extended infomercial (much like Fireproof was really just an ad for the guidebook its plot centered around), the cinematic equivalent of (I apologize in advance for making this analogy again, but it’s apt) one of those make-your-penis-bigger-pill infomercials that are disguised as talk shows.

I’m not sure why the Kendricks keep making these movies (other than the obvious one, of course; these things turn quite a profit for their creators), as the message of each is the same: a little prayer will get you anything you want. The Latino day laborer (that’s as far as the script develops his character) who loses his job on a construction site prays once and gets a job, then prays again and gets an even better job (one for which he’s completely unqualified, no less).

The guy whose young daughter is killed by a drunk driver (the movie never mentions what happens to the driver or any of the other people in the car he hits) prays and finds his grieving family suddenly transformed into a tight-knit unit that would make the Osmonds envious. The black guy (again, that’s as far as the script develops his character) prays and the daughter who previously resented him for not letting her go on a date with an older boy suddenly realizes he’s absolutely right and even beams with delight when he presents her with a purity ring and tells her he’ll be the one to determines who she dates and marries (seriously, she looks like he’s just handed her the keys to a new Mercedes).

Which leads me to this: the movie’s more than a little sexist. It takes the argument that men need to be strong role models for their children (duh) and corrupts it into an assertion that a father should lord over his household with absolute authority. The wives in the story exist for no other reason than to look to their husbands for guidance (even the Latino guy’s wife, although she does so in an exaggeratedly hysterical voice), and the daughters are there just so their fathers can dream of giving them away (the exact phrasing the movie uses) at their weddings.

Maybe it’s a knee-jerk reaction on my part, but some of this strikes me as being more than a little sick. The way the lines are written and delivered in the scene where the guy tells his daughter he’ll allow her to get married to whomever the Lord tells him she should marry, it comes across as a way of euphemistically describing a transfer of property. (I can imagine a sequel in which the marriage doesn’t work and she and her husband turn to the lessons set down in Fireproof for help. Two prayers and a bouquet of cheap flowers will set everything aright.)

There’s a chance the movie isn’t advocating a practice that should have gone the way of the dodo centuries ago (and ironically enough is most commonly practiced by people many who take to this movie would view as heathen). I say that because the writing’s so bad it’s possible the Kendricks were attempting to send a completely different message but were tripped up by their lack of skills. Courageous is packed with horrible dialogue, which is stilted when it’s supposed to be everyday banter and excruciating when it turns into sermonizing and proselytizing (which is probably the wrong word, as the only people who’ll glom to the movie’s message are those who already agree with it).

There’s enough unfunny comedy to fill eighteen Friedberg-Seltzer flicks. In one scene two of the deputies are on their way to lunch with the Latino day laborer. They stop to aid in an arrest, tossing the perp (who like all of the street criminals in the movie is a black guy decked out in a do-rag and silver chains) into the back of their car, warning him that the Latino guy is a vicious gang leader. Staring maliciously at the perp and bouncing around like he’s in the middle of a sugar high, the Latino guy starts speaking subtitled Spanish, describing what he’s going to have for lunch. The perp, believing the Latino guy is making threats, starts fearing for his life and screaming to be protected. Trust me when I say it plays even worse than it reads. (The attempts at heart-wrenching drama are funnier than the attempts at comedy. When the guy whose daughter is killed returns to the bank parking lot where she’d earlier asked him to dance with her and dances with his memories of her [yes, you read that right], I howled.)

The script’s structure is beyond crude. The movie opens with a brief bit of action (the scene makes one of the main characters seem like the last guy who’d want carrying a gun and protecting the lives of others; his actions are beyond stupid), gives you another bit of action a short time later, then settles into an extended lull, offering up nothing but talk for a good seventy-five minutes. The characters do nothing but talk and talk, delivering thinly veiled mini-sermons to one another. And then comes the big climactic action sequence, which is meant to (finally) resolve the seemingly forgotten plotline set up in the movie’s first scene.

Making four of the leads deputy sheriffs is nothing more than a means by which to spice up the trailer, toss in some shots of guys with guns. These guys could be toll booth operators and it wouldn’t have much effect on the actual plot (although it would rob viewers of the hilarious scene where the sheriff tells his deputies to be on the lookout for criminals who don’t have strong male role models).

The movie’s 129 minutes are an incredibly long 129 minutes. In addition to not being a writer, Alex Kendrick is not a director. He has no eye, and he certainly knows nothing about pace (which makes me wonder why he hired himself to co-edit the movie). It’s clumsily staged (the shootout at the end looks like a bunch of seven-year-olds playing cops and robbers) and put together, essentially a glorified home movie. The acting is uniformly bad, the cast filled with nonprofessional volunteers from the church the Kendricks attend. (Alex Kendrick and one of the church’s other associate pastors take the two lead roles. Big mistake.)

As I mentioned above, the movie is capped by an actual sermon. An in-character Alex Kendrick gets up in front of his congregation and spells out the movie’s message. This sermon goes on and on, eventually becoming the religious equivalent of that infamous speech in Atlas Shrugged, Kendrick hectoring his audience into joining his cause. Watching a deputy sheriff morph into a preacher in the blink of an eye is definitely funny, but all this scene does is take the heavy-handedness of what has come before and compound it. It’s like a rotten cherry on top of a spoiled sundae. Much like this movie, I imagine such a concoction would make me violently ill.

THE VIDEO

Courageous is presented in its original 2.35:1 ratio; the 1080p transfer has been encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc. The transfer does what it can with the original photography, coming close to being very good but compromised by the poorly handled stylistics. Kendrick and cinematographer Bob Scott attempt to replicate the look of a big-budget action flick, but they apparently don’t know how to complement or compensate for the consequences. Contrast gets cranked, which gives everything and everyone (except for Kendrick, who remains pasty throughout) a ruddy cast and trips up blacks and shadows.

There’s some digital flatness on display (the movie was shot on digital video), and moments of fast motion (the action footage is strobing and is overcranked) can look rough and unnatural. When things calm down or scenes are bathed in bright sunlight, though, the image often has a slick look, clear, nicely detailed, and sporting colors that border on vivid. There’s also a surprising amount of aliasing; some of it’s of the sort you find in all but the very best transfers, but some of it is beyond distracting.

THE AUDIO

Audio comes in the form of DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks (in both English and French). There’s a bit of life in the action scenes, with okay surround action and bass that thumps a bit but never fools you into thinking you’re watching anything other than a low-budget do-it-yourself flick. The talky scenes are devoid of any sort of atmosphere or color, collapsing into the front channels and staying there. Dialogue sounds okay, relatively speaking; if there’s a problem, it’s likely the fault of the delivery, not the mix.

English, English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The commentary by Alex and Stephen Kendrick is a surprisingly nuts-and-bolts track, delving into the technical challenges brought on by the shoestring budget. The tradeoff is it’s coming from two guys who don’t know the first thing about making movies. 

All of the following are presented in high-def:

The Making of Courageous (23 minutes) does give you some idea of how the production was put together, but much of the time it plays more like a commercial for the RED cameras used during filming.

A dozen deleted scenes (11 minutes) offer more sermonizing.

Outrageous: Outtakes and Bloopers (7 minutes) is an unfunny gag reel (much of which is obviously staged).

Courageous in 60 Seconds (1 minute) attempts (and fails) to humorously boil the movie down to a minute-long montage.

The Heart of Courageous (3 minutes) finds various members of the cast and crew talking about what it means to be a father.

The Story of My Father (9 minutes) has nothing to do with Courageous. It’s actually about two of the actors from Facing the Giants, but for reasons that are never explained appears here instead of there.

A code to access an UltraViolet digital copy is also included.

FINAL THOUGHT