With Faith There is Nothing to Fear
For six years Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick) has coached the Shiloh Eagles but has never been able to lead them to a winning season, instead he has had to put up with seeing his best players leave before they become seniors. With some looking to move Grant on things are looking bleak at work and just as bleak at home as car trouble, house troubles and the discovery that he can't give his wife the child she longs for makes him feel desperate. But with his faith in the Lord remaining strong he seeks wisdom from God and receives it in a surprising form when he has a visitor to his office. It is then he challenges the players to not just believe in God but realise that nothing is impossible if you commit to honouring God in everything you do.
I wouldn't for a minute call myself an expert in Christian cinema but I don't shy away from faith based movies and try to judge them at the same level I judge other movies. With that said there have been very few movies which come under the Christian cinema banner which I would watch more than once but "Facing the Giants" is one of them. Maybe that is less to do with it being a Christian movie and more to do with it being an inspirational sports movie about having the faith to never quit till you can't give anymore. But as such "Facing the Giants" is a piece of Christian cinema which can work for a secular audience as well as a Christian audience although I don't think it really works in an evangelical way, purely an inspirational way.
So as I said "Facing the Giants" is a piece of Christian Cinema and one with the message that nothing through God is impossible as long as you do things to honour him. And I tell you what it does a good job of getting across the messages it wants from that point about doing things to honour God to living without fear. But whilst it delivers this Christian message and doesn't shy away from doing so the greatest thing that "Facing the Giants" does is to show that you can use the bible as a guide for living your life, such as in a scene where an assistant coach use the words to inspire a kicker to not kick left or right as that is easy but going straight down the middle which is a harder path. It is one of the reasons why "Facing the Giants" stands out from the crowd as whilst there are some cheesy elements, the sort which you kind of expect from a Christian movie, the positives definitely out weigh the negatives.
What this all boils down to is that not only is "Facing the Giants" an above average piece of Christian cinema it is an inspirational sports movie which has the ability to entertain those who enjoy sports movies. Although it is a movie which in my heart I believe requires the audience not to be automatically dismissive of a movie due to its Christian basis.
