Machine Gun Preacher

  Like Lean on Me, Machine Gun Preacher has good things to say.  It has a good cast to say it.  Its something people would listen to.  But just like Lean on Me... alot of the message gets lost in the process.

  Unlike Lean on Me, which could've been fixed up easily with a few extra scenes, Machine Gun Preacher suffers from shoddy editing and haphazard directing. The movie can keep your attention and tug on the heart strings, but its put together so poorly that you'd think it'd be better off as a sunday sermon from a passionate preacher behind a pulpit.  Because the movie is preaching to you. Its speaking volumes.  Its a tale of redemption, salvation, perseverance and ultimately going the distance and doing good deeds.

  All the actors bring their A game here. Bringing their characters to life with gusto. You feel passion and heartbreak, pride and joy, from them its all believable.
But the movie constructed around these characters is pieced together really badly.  There are powerful emotional scenes that highlight the film throughout that are so damn good, you find yourself wondering how they pull that off, yet drop the ball completely with the simple stuff.

  Characters appear in scenes, apparently doing important stuff, stuff we feel we should know about. Yet we ultimately have no friggin clue whats happening until the scene is practically over. But no, don't worry, you didn't miss something. Thats just how awkward this movie can get.  Characters have revelations out of the blue, undergo fundamental personality changes, and do things with no apparent cause, and all this with very little and often no explanation at all.  When thats simply not bad enough, the editing makes it worse, cutting scenes prematurely, intercutting random stuff and overall doing a great job of confusing the hell out of me.

  All this is truly a shame because this movie could have been a must-see emotional powerhouse. As it is... its a mess. A mess with amazing potential and some truly moving moments of raw emotion and intensity. You have to weigh the pros and cons yourself.
I don't regret seeing it, but I'd have to think HARD before seeing it again.