Jungle Thriller. A son explores returning to the stone age tribe that killed his missionary father in the 1950s.
This movie is a step in the right direction for Christian stories being told in Hollywood. I think it still has a long way to go. But we are getting there. We are getting better. I believe we need to support these kind of movies by paying to see them so the studios will distribute more of them and then we’ll get better at making them. And so I recommend seeing this, but I still think Christian filmmaking has a lot to learn. So let’s support it with our money so it can get better. This movie is miles ahead of those End Times obsessions that keep being made, and for that, I applaud it and support it.
I liked how they tried to avoid the Christianese of many Christian stories by downplaying the god talk of the missionaries. HOWEVER, this is a story about missionaries, and I never got to know the hearts of these people and what would drive them to risk their lives trying to get to these savages? And also, what would drive the women of the martyred men to go back into the village of the people who killed their husbands and bring their children? These are the most important moments of the story and they are never dealt with. It’s almost like they were so paranoid of sounding like a typical evangelical movie that the result was a lack of clarity of purpose behind characters as well as internal issues and struggles.
I thought it was an interesting idea to show the native’s perspective, but unfortunately, the actual result was a bit boring. I found the missionary stories to be more interesting, but less developed.
The final scene where the son of the matryed pilot confronts his father’s killer was a powerful opportunity, but I have to admit that it didn’t work for me the way it was done. I didn’t believe the kid’s acting or the way the whole thing was set up.