The Second Chance

Last week I got an e-mail from a friend of mine. She got it from a from of hers, who got it from Steve Taylor.

"Those of you who know me, which should be everyone on this list, know that a deficit of talent, aptitude and funding has never stopped me from pursuing a new career.

The latest result opens this Friday, February 17th at a theater quite possibly near you. It's called THE SECOND CHANCE, it's been picked up by Sony Pictures Distribution, and despite my inexperience as a writer/director, it turned out reasonably well due to a number of factors beyond my control.

It's not like you owe me anything just because we're "email pals," but if you go to www.thesecondchancemovie.com you can find out if and where the movie's playing in your area. And I don't expect anyone to drive more than, say, six hours to buy a ticket (even though I'd gladly make the trek for your major motion picture debut).

Feel free to forward this to all your "email pals." I'm told that if enough of you pay to see THE SECOND CHANCE on its opening weekend, you'll send a "message to Hollywood." And if you should neglect to delete my email address when circulating this, you'll send a "message to Steve" to never again mark mass emails as urgent."

Anyway, on Tuesday after church Brian and I, along with a couple of friends, went to see it. It stars Michael W. Smith as the associate pastor of a suburban mega-church which has a sister church in the inner city that they raise money to support. The church board is not happy with Smith, so they send him off to work in the inner city church as punishment. From there, you can probably guess what happens. He deals with the things that he is not normally exposed to in his 'safe' suburb and ends up learning some life lessons and eventually feels God calling him to stay in the inner city.

Despite the predictable ending, the movie is actually pretty decent. I haven't generally been a fan of many Christian films, mostly because the quality just isn't up to par. I believe that God is a creative God. I also believe that God has called us to give Him our best. Between these two statements, I have never understood why our "best" as Christians can't be just as good as everything else around us. The Left Behind movies, and others in that vein, have not lived up in my opinion. The Second Chance is, I think, a step in the right direction. It certainly has it's flaws, but it's just about as good as you can expect a movie starring Michael W. Smith to be. The characters and plot, though somewhat predictable, come across as genuine. One of the ways I judge whether or not I like a movie is if I had an emotional connection with the characters and if the story draws me in. That was the case with The Second Chance. I think tears even came to my eyes at one point.

As I stated before, the movie has it's flaws. I wouldn't put it in my "top 100 movies of all time," but for what it is, it's pretty good. I would even go so far as to say it's the best Christian movie I've seen. I guess my thought process is that if we support The Second Chance, then maybe there will be another step towards bridging the quality gap between Christian and mainstream cinema. It probably won't last that long in theaters, so if you'd like to see it you might want to go this week. If not, I'm sure it will be out on dvd soon. I hate to be so negative about it's box office prospects, but when Brian, myself, and our friends went to see it, we were the only ones in the theater. In any case, it's worth seeing, if only to support Steve Taylor in his pursuing a career in film.