Facing the Giants

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Facing the Giants

Facing the Giants cover
Directed by Alex Kendrick
Written by Alex Kendrick
Stephen Kendrick
Starring Alex Kendrick
Shannen Fields
Tracy Goode
Distributed by Sherwood Pictures
Release date(s) 2006-09-29
Running time 111 min.
Language English
Budget $100,000

Facing the Giants is a 2006 American drama film directed by and starring Alex Kendrick. The cast, composed of volunteers from Sherwood Baptist Church, includes Shannen Fields, James Blackwell, Bailey Cave, and Tracy Goode. Shot in Albany, Georgia, the film relates an underdog story about American football from an Evangelical Christian worldview.

The film was released to DVD in early 2007 and made its television debut on September 21, 2008, on Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Facing the Giants is the story of Grant Taylor, a mediocre high school football coach. After several years of failing seasons, the Shiloh Eagles are considering replacing him as head coach. This is not the only problem Taylor is facing; his car is breaking down, and he finds out he is the reason that his wife cannot become pregnant. In order to get his life, and football team, back on track, he realizes he must cry out to God for help. He creates a new coaching philosophy – he needs to praise God when they win, and praise God when they lose. From that point on, they lose only one game, and go on to win the State Championship by defeating the champion team, the Giants. After such fortune, his wife also becomes pregnant at last.

[edit] Cast

Actor Role
Alex Kendrick Grant Taylor
Shannen Fields Brooke Taylor
James Blackwell Matt Prater
Bailey Cave David Childers
Steve Williams Larry Childers
Tracy Goode Brady Owens
Jim McBride Bobby Lee Duke
Tommy McBride Jonathan Weston
Jason McLeod Brock Kelley
Chris Willisas J.T. Hawkins Jr.
Ray Wood Mr. Bridges
Shiloh Eagles in formation.

Mark Richt, head football coach at the University of Georgia, makes a cameo. As presented in the film, Coach Taylor played college football under Richt. However, since Coach Taylor was at SCA for six years, it would have been impossible for him to play college football at the University of Georgia after 2000, when Coach Richt became head coach. From 1990 to 2000 Mark Richt was the offensive coordinator for Florida State University, so it is presumable that Coach Taylor played football under him at FSU. Also, a news report from WALB features then-sports anchor Kevin McDermond in a brief cameo.

[edit] Production

Coach Taylor encourages the Eagles.

The movie was shot on high definition digital video tape (using the Panasonic Varicam) and transferred to film.[1] Using real high school football teams, the football action sequences were shot by the film's director of photography, Bob Scott, who is a veteran cinematographer for NFL Films. Another NFL Films technician, Rob Whitehurst, recorded the movie's sound.

[edit] Soundtrack

Facing the Giants: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Facing the Giants: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack cover
Film score
Released October 3, 2006
Genre Christian

The church music minister, Mark Willard, wrote the film score. The film also uses seven Christian pop songs from Third Day, Casting Crowns, Bebo Norman, Ana Laura, Josh Bates and Mark Willard. There are five tracks of original score during the soundtrack.

Third Day's distributor is Provident Label Group, which is associated with Provident Films, Sony and Samuel Goldwyn Pictures. The latter eventually distributed the film nationally. A routine request for permission led to the national release of the film.[2]

[edit] Official listing

  1. Come Together - Mac Powell
  2. Voice of Truth - Casting Crowns
  3. Facing the Giants Theme (Score) - Mark Willard
  4. I'm Finding You - Bebo Norman
  5. The Deathcrawl (Score) - Mark Willard
  6. Completely - Ana Laura
  7. A Gift from God (Score) - Mark Willard
  8. Come on Back to Me - Mac Powell
  9. Never Give Up on Me - Josh Bates
  10. The Fight (Score) - Mark Willard
  11. With You - Mark Willard
  12. Attempting the Impossible (Score) - Mark Willard

[edit] Reception

[edit] Box office

In its first weekend, the film opened on 441 screens nationwide in the United States.[3] Despite such a small number of theaters, the film opened in twelfth place with $1,343,537. Only three films in the top ten released that weekend grossed more per theater. For such a small budget of $100,000, the film ultimately was shown in over 1,000 theaters and grossed over $10,000,000 as of January 1, 2007.[3]

[edit] Reviews

The film only earned a 9% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 3 positive reviews out of 23 reviews counted and a 38/100 score at Metacritic.[4][5] Some critics complained that characters confronting problems from an explicitly Christian worldview belonged in church rather than portrayed in film. Josh Rosenblatt wrote, "its feel-good storyline, shopworn message, and bottomless sermonizing would have played better in Sunday school than on the big screen, which is — let’s face it — Babylon’s turf."[6] Paul Doro wrote, "Facing the Giants is a sermon much more than it is a movie. It jumps back and forth between football and various other subplots…"[7] Counter to the foregoing, "the script unfortunately devolves into cliché and cant, other aspects of the movie are quite good — so good, in fact, that Facing the Giants shames the efforts of a lot of better-financed moviemakers."[8]

[edit] Rating controversy

In May 2006, the producers of Facing the Giants received notice from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) that the film would be receiving a "Parental Guidance Suggested" rating, or "PG" rating.[9] One of the film's consultants, Mark Joseph, who had also conducted media strategy for films such as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Passion of The Christ and had unsuccessfully lobbied Walden Media to release Giants, alerted The Drudge Report which picked up the story on June 8, 2006. Within hours the story was a hot topic in religious and conservative media, outraging many who believed the MPAA was entering uncharted territory by allowing the religious content of a film to influence ratings decisions. In the ensuing days the story garnered media attention in countless media outlets, for example The New York Times, Good Morning America, Fox News and many talk radio programs.[10]

According to the film's producers, they were originally told the motion picture received a "PG" rating because of its strong religious themes and because it elevated one religion over another.[9] The MPAA later countered that Facing the Giants contains football violence and also deals with the mature topics of infertility and depression, thus warranting the higher rating and initially denied that religious themes were an issue. The Kendrick brothers expected the "PG" rating because of the movie's mature themes and did not appeal the board's rating.[10] The producers claim the MPAA changed their story after the controversy began.[11]

Conversely, some Christian groups thought a "PG" rating might sway more teenagers into seeing Facing the Giants. "I think that a 'G' for a lot of teenagers is the kiss of death," Focus on the Family media specialist Bob Waliszewski told the Los Angeles Times. "[The PG rating is] a case where unfairness will probably be a blessing in disguise."[12] One report claimed the publicity garnered from the controversy was worth "about $8 million".[13]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Internet Movie Database". Facing the Giants. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805526/. Retrieved on September 7 2007. 
  2. ^ Unknown author, (2007-01-30).Soundtrack notes, Facing the Giants web site.
  3. ^ a b "Facing the Giants". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=facingthegiants.htm. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  4. ^ "Facing the Giants (2006)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/facing_the_giants/. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  5. ^ "Facing the Giants". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/facingthegiants?q=Facing%20the%20Giants. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  6. ^ "Facing the Giants". AustinChronicle.com. http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Calendar/Film?Film=oid%3a417777. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  7. ^ "First down, 110 trite minutes to go". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=529185. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  8. ^ "Giants predictable but still good news". Northwest Arkansas News' Source. http://nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg&section=MovieStyle&storyid=168158. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  9. ^ a b "Film Rating Upsets Christian Groups". ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2105871&page=1. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  10. ^ a b "Facing the Giants MPAA Ratings Controversy". Carmel Entertainment Group. http://www.carmelentertainmentgroup.com/News/C15A8EF0-CC2F-4447-BD1B-E33F041A198C.html. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  11. ^ "Christian Movie's Rating Worries Lawmakers". The Christian Post. http://ny.christianpost.com/article/culture/43/section/christian.movie%5Cs.rating.worries.lawmakers/1.htm. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  12. ^ "Christian Groups Attack Hollywood Over PG Rating For "Evangelistic" Movie...". Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/06/21/christian-groups-attack-h_n_23496.html. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 
  13. ^ "Facing the Giants in final week at Albany theater". Citizen News. http://www.thecitizen.biz/index.php?id=2243. Retrieved on September 7, 2007. 

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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