I have never been a big fan of “faith-based” movies. The ones I have sampled either leave me cringing at the sledgehammer approach to the Christian faith with cardboard heroes and villains, or distract me with low-budget production quality. As far as acting goes, too many rely on performers who seem to be more at home in dinner theater productions of “Showboat.” The “name” actors in these movies are usually from the ranks of those who used to have a higher celebrity profile, but now just enough cache to help with the financing and marketing of this genre of movie.
My aversion to this kind of film may also be explained by my growing up in the Catholic bubble I did. The compound adjective “faith-based” fires up my Catholic radar, which then scans content for decidedly American brands of Protestantism. And even though I do not expect or demand all films I watch come with magisterial-informed biblical exegesis, I don’t like being hit over the head with content that portends to be Christian, but in the depths of my Catholic heart and brain I believe to be either incorrect or not the fullness of the faith.
So, you may think I have come to bury the faith-based movie. But it’s actually time to praise one.
I watched the “Unsung Hero” — which appeared in theaters last April — because Archangel Radio asked me to comment on a faith-based movie of my choice.
Thanks to new media, everything is local these days. The small Catholic radio station, based in Alabama, became aware of me via my Angelus columns published online. And for almost a year now, I have been invited on their airwaves to periodically share thoughts and commentary on films and television. So, I guess you can say I’m very “big” in Alabama.
As the deadline for my appearance drew closer and my anxiety peaked, I faced a dilemma: What faith-based movie was I going to talk about? This meant that I would have to watch one from beginning to end.
I steadied myself with words of wisdom from my mother, who always told us that when we were having a bad day or suffering from something, to offer it up for the “poor souls in purgatory.” As I read one online synopsis after another I began to fear I was going to be emptying purgatory altogether until finally alighting on “Unsung Hero.” I hit my remote, ordered the film on my streaming service, and if purgatory was going to be vacated, so be it.
“Unsung Hero” is based on a true story, but a true story with a “Hollywood” ending. If it were fiction, the resolution would be dismissed by critics as contrived, but sometimes God does his best work through impossible situations.
For the Smallbone family, it was an impossible situation on stilts. When we first meet the patriarch of the family the movie hinges on, he is a prosperous music promoter in Australia with a big house, a big family, and plenty of prestige. But a series of financial disasters take everything away — everything but the family. Soon he is jobless and broke, with six children, and one on the way.
With his financial desperation forcing their hand, father and mother — with their six kids in tow — leave home and travel to Nashville, Tennessee, where a possible job is in the offing. When that offer is rescinded, the dad and mom are not only financially strapped, but they are also thousands of miles from home.
It is a story of true perseverance and faith. It says profound things about what a man, even a man of faith, goes through when being the breadwinner is stripped away from him. The movie is most real when the father struggles with his dire circumstances and shows in refreshingly stark and visceral ways that a faith journey is just that, a journey where many times one finds road closures in one’s path.
For the Smallbone family, it means having to clean houses and mow lawns to put food on the table. It means accepting charity, something the father has an increasingly difficult time doing.
Music is a major character in this film and is the vehicle by which the Hollywood ending is rendered. If it wasn’t true, it would be hard to believe. The film was a passion project by two of those seven Smallbone children, brothers who, like their oldest sister, became popular performers in the Nashville music scene before becoming nationally known names in Christian music. Joel Smallbone co-wrote, co-directed, and stars as his dad.
“Unsung Hero” is a performance worth watching. The brothers consider this film an ode to their father and mother and to their faith. For me, this film has restored my faith in this genre of filmmaking.
“Unsung Hero” is available on multiple streaming services, including Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube.
