"Dog Days of Summer" — movie review

This is a direct-to-DVD movie [— or not; IMDB gives the release date as 2007 and lists no external reviews, but one commenter claims to have seen it in a theater] that was offered me to review. It will be released on April 21, 2009, and has a web site through which those who wish to may see a trailer, do some investigation, or place advance orders.

But should they? Should you?

I'll be candid. I'm fairly selective in what I choose to review, particularly when it comes to books. First, I have limited time, and don't like spending it on unprofitable or irritating things if I've a choice. Second, as a rule (with few exceptions), I just don't like writing negative reviews. Particularly, I hate to have to be critical of products whose authors or artists (or producers or publishers) have provided them to me in the hopes I'd say a kind word. One day, God willing, I'll hope someone has something positive to say about a book with my name on it, and I know how discouraging and hurtful a thoughtless or carelessly negative review would be.

I accepted this, then, in the hopes that I could enjoy it, show it to my family, give it a glowing review. After all, it is "Dove Family Approved" for ages twelve and over. And it won "Best First Feature" at the 2008 Sabaoth Film Festival in Milan, Italy. It starred accomplished actor Will Patton, whose work I've appreciated; had glowing user-reviews at IMDB ("good!" — "inspiring!"), was supposed to have a Twilight Zone / coming-of-age vibe. So, I had a positive attitude.

So: Did I like it? Do I recommend it?

Regrettably No, and No, respectively.

Spoiler-light

More positively, I can say that the camera-work had a professional feel and a good "eye." The musical scoring was evocative and atmospheric, with a tone of dread and anticipation. Patton was indeed good, enigmatic and eery. The young actors who played the two boys at the center of the story were natural and fun to watch; in fact, all the actors were more than adequate. Only R. Keith Harris, who played "Pastor Salem," had a forced feeling to his performance that didn't ring quite true; similarly, some of the opening narration felt melodramatic and had an amateurish edge to it.
Negatively, I think the movie tries to be a lot of things, and largely fails. It does try to combine Twilight Zone with coming-of-age movies such as Stand by Me and The Sandlot and all, with books and movies critical of small town life and small town people. That is, it throws those elements together in a bowl and stirs vigorously. But they don't really blend, and what comes out of the oven is nothing you should eat.

The single best comment came from my 13yo Josiah, who watched it with me. (Valerie bailed after about twenty minutes, which should tell you something; but I hung in there for you, Dear Reader!) With one sudden development at the movie's end, we both said "What?!" — and Josiah chuckled, "Wow. That was totally random!" The same could be said for much of the movie.

Basically, the plot sets up a nice town with nice people, and then kills and/or corrupts them... or exposes them as corrupt, or whatever defilement you'd like to choose. There is no redemptive message. Well, no coherent redemptive message that I understood. Unless "Embrace your inner child" is supposed to be a redemptive message.

Actually, that probably was supposed to be the redemptive message: embrace your inner child, with its capacity for hope and faith. But everything before that had torn down any basis for vertical hope and faith, and offered no clear pointer to vertical hope and faith.

I left the movie thankful that I had not made it the weekly family-movie for Burger Night, as I had considered doing on the basis of the trailer. Something gave me pause, and I'm glad I "listened." If I'd done it, and my dear wife hadn't clanged me in the head with a cast-iron skillet, I'd have done it to myself.

Now, be warned. The next section is...

Spoiler-heavy

Movie starts out with a guy walking into a ruined town, and commences some effectively-done flashbacks, with accompanying ominous narration. We begin to meet the cast of characters in this delightful old town. In comes creepy Eli Cottonmouth (?!; Will Patton) in his black truck, proclaiming it a beautiful town. You know you're in trouble now; and boy, howdy, are you.

See those two delightful little boys? Don't you love them? Yessir. One of them expresses his thought that drowning would be a terrible way to die. And later, drown he does, and terrible it is. You watch him drown, little tiny boy, struggling for his life, and drowning. It's horrible, and there is no happy turn to it. His friend watches, too, inexplicably uninvolved. Then, too late, he jumps in (he can swim, he just chose not to) and searches for his friend frantically and fruitlessly. He's heartbroken and shattered. We're not too happy, either.

Wow! That's some family fun! But wait, there's more!

See that older brother? Loves his brother, plays baseball, likes this girl: really a fine young man. Except for where he beats an old man to mush with his bat. Hey! Family fun!

And that girl. What a sweet young thing. Has a crush on the boy. Reads to a blind man. Aww. Except then the blind man goes cranky and nuts on her (we're never sure why), they have an ugly scene, and then stomps off bitterly, and then turns up missing.

"Missing"? That's what the Bible-preaching pastor reports. She's moved on. But then we find she was pregnant. And we suspect the big, old-man-batting brother. But it wasn't him. It was — can you guess? — the pastor! Yes, of course, the pastor got her pregnant. Wow, who could have seen that coming? But wait! There's more! He also killed her and hid her body! That's right! Because that's what pastors always do!

(Remember Phillips' Law of Movie Clergy: if they really believe their religious claptrap, they're hypocrites; if they're worth anything, they're losing their faith.)

Oh, and the blind guy? He killed his wife! And let everyone blame the old guy who the nice big brother puréed with his bat!

Say it with me. "Wow. That was totally random." (Maybe I'll just let Josiah do the movie reviews.)

I lay in bed afterwards, trying to get to sleep, asking myself "In what possible way is this a Christian movie, or a movie that should appeal to Christians and get Dove approval?" I may have hit on the answer.

I think the movie is "redemptive" in the same way Flannery O'Connor stories are "redemptive." Which is to say, Not.

I know I brand myself as a literary Flintstone when I say that, but I'm sticking with it. I'd heard and heard about what a deep, wonderful Christian author O'Connor was, so I read a stack-full of her stories. First, I learned she wasn't Christian, she was Roman Catholic. Second, those stories were the most joyless, loveless, graceless, hopeless piles of darkness I can recall reading. I wanted a shower. They made Stephen King look like the gaily-skipping, daisy-flinging Joel Osteen of horror writers.

And so here's a story set in the South, clumsily "exposing" a bunch of nice people as horrors and hypocrites, and... The End! Have a nice night, folks! Thanks for coming!

But I have this little theory that, in order for anything to be "redemptive," there actually has to be some, you know, redemption.

Which this movie doesn't, in any coherent way that I got.

In sum: sorry.

Wanted to like it, wanted to recommend it; didn't, and can't.

You want a redemptive message?

Here it is.

Truth of the matter is, we're actually worse than the movie says. Whether we mistreat others or not (and we do), we are all rebels against God and His law, by nature and by choice. Our fate is worse than exposure here on earth as hypocrites. Our fate is exposure before God as justly-condemned criminals, traitors, and would-be God-killers.

But God, in His mercy, has provided a way of redemption, but only one way. His way. God the Son became man, to do what no man ever did: to fulfill God's righteous demands from the heart, from conception to death. And then God made the One who had never been tainted by sin in any way to be sin, to represent sin, on the Cross. And He judged Him for that sin, in the stead of guilty sinners.

When Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead, He signalled that God the Father had accepted His sacrifice in full. So now, anyone who believes in Jesus as Lord and Savior, and trusts in Him alone for salvation, is redeemed, saved, changed, transformed, adopted, grasped, guided, and guaranteed eternal glory in the presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So there is hope. But hope is not found in embracing our inner child. It is found in embracing God's eternal Child, the divine Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now that is my idea of redemptive. It has bad news, true. But it points just as clearly to the Good News.

Which this movie, I must report, doesn't.