SYNOPSICS
War Room (2015) is a English movie. Alex Kendrick has directed this movie. Priscilla C. Shirer,T.C. Stallings,Karen Abercrombie,Beth Moore are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2015. War Room (2015) is considered one of the best Drama movie in India and around the world.
Filled with heart, humor, and wit, WAR ROOM follows Tony and Elizabeth Jordan, a couple who seemingly have it all-great jobs, a beautiful daughter, their dream home. But appearances can be deceiving. In reality, their marriage has become a war zone and their daughter is collateral damage. With guidance from Miss Clara, an older, wiser woman, Elizabeth discovers she can start fighting for her family instead of against them. As the power of prayer and Elizabeth's newly energized faith transform her life, will Tony join the fight and become the man he knows he needs to be? Together, their real enemy doesn't have a prayer.
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War Room (2015) Reviews
Great movie!
It seems odd to me that this movie would have received such a low rating so far. Unlike many Christian themed movies on television, which are lacking in many ways, this movie is well worth watching. The production, story and acting are all as good, if not better than, any other movie you'd expect to see in the theaters. Without giving away any real details, the movie follows a family that seems to be falling apart and realizes they need a higher power than they can find in themselves to stay together. I don't know if I could say that there are any real mind shattering revelations in this movie, but it is truly thought provoking none the less. Obviously, people who refuse to believe in God and feel no need for faith aren't going to like this move, they don't want to be preached to. But I would highly recommend this movie to any one who does believe in God, and even to those who are open to believing.
Preaching to the Converted
What is this movie's message? Pray for what you want, and you'll get it? That sounds more like The Secret than The Bible. A comfortable middle-class black family have some first world problems, and turn to the Bible-belt version of Christianity to solve them. If they spent less time saying "Hallelujah" and more time reading the actual Bible, they would see Jesus saying "sell what you have and give to the poor". I'm not a Christian, but if you're going to call yourself a Christian, then be one. There is something very suspicious about the reviews so far (up to September 2015). Forty-three reviews, three of them negative and 40 overwhelmingly positive, but a score of 5.5. If you pardon the pun, there's something fishy going on.
This might be the worst movie I have ever seen.
This film is just absolute garbage. While the technical side of the film is well done, the camera work, the lighting, etc. The story and the performances of the actors is just laughable. The film centers around a family that has problems, which mostly come in the form of a dad character who is a little too into his work. The mom and the daughter seem to play victim to this. From there the mother meets a wise older lady that teaches her how to pray and the movie goes pretty much as you would predict from there with one minor exception that I think makes the story worse. (SPOILER STARTS HERE) - The Father gets caught skimming from work and is fired. That sends him down a spiral and he learns to accept Jesus and prayer into his life and what not. That bothers me because the only reason his character is repentant is because he got caught. Had he not gotten caught but rather came to see the error of his ways on his own that would have made for a much better story. EVERYONE is sorry after they get caught. Poor acting, worse pacing, and a predictable story make this a movie to miss for sure.
It's time to come out of the closet
"War Room" is yet another film made to cash in on the recent Christian movie boom and like its contemporaries, it puts the message first and trivial matters such as acting, directing, writing, editing, and production a distant second. What makes "War Room" perhaps even worse than its proselytizing brethren is while they tend to share the same overall message (Christians RIGHT, everyone else WRONG), the underlying message in "War Room" is far more disturbing. "War Room" is the story of Tony (T.C. Stallings, who with his razor sharp features and V-shaped brow is a bit too scary to pass as an everyman), his wife Elizabeth (Priscilla Shirer), and their daughter, Danielle. Elizabeth and her husband argue constantly and he even ponders cheating on her. Things change for Elizabeth when she agrees to sell the house of Miss Clara (Karen Abercrombie). Miss Clara soon senses the turmoil in Elizabeth's home life and tells her that her marital problems will be magically fixed if she hides in a closet and simply prays for them to get better. Yes, really. The acting is terrible but considering that the leads are motivational speakers and the director gives himself a prominent role it's no surprise. The only person who even tries is Karen Abercrombie but she plays the sassy black grandma shtick to such extremes that even Tyler Perry would tell her to tone it down. She's bossy, pushy, and shouts "Praise Jesus" constantly when she's not speaking in overwrought war analogies. That being said, at least the scenes with her had some life to them. The writing is just awful. It's full of clunky exposition and treats its female lead with contempt at times, making constant jokes about her bad breath and smelly feet. You can tell men wrote this as the one scene featuring all women has them prattle on about being subservient to their husbands and how it's so "hard" to be a woman. After the first hour, Jesus is mentioned so much that you could turn it into a drinking game. Another way the writing fails is that Tony is so mean to Elizabeth that their marriage really seems beyond saving. He's verbally abusive, ignores their daughter, lords his superiority over his wife and ogles other women. If that weren't bad enough, he turns out to be a thief and a drug dealer and says in one scene that he wouldn't give his wife CPR if her life were in danger! I'm supposed to want these people together? And even if divorce is unthinkable (which in this universe, it seems to be) why is marriage counseling never mentioned? Do they not know that some churches actually offer that? They could go to a counselor in their church, save their marriage (Tony's beyond saving but just go with it) AND find Jesus along the way! They can even keep the prayer closet. It's pretty bad when I can think of a way to solve the central conflict of the movie and keep the religious themes intact better than these jokers did. This movie, like others of the genre, operates in an alternate reality where people convert instantly. Miss Clara preaches to a mugger and instead of getting gutted like a fish like she would be in real life, the mugger slinks away. Elizabeth decides to fight for her marriage by running around the house like a crazy person and shouting at Satan in the movie's most unintentionally funny scene. Elizabeth's incessant praying somehow gives her husband food poisoning while on a date with another woman and he just gives up and leaves. The movie never considers the fact that he could still go have sex with the woman and Tony is so nasty by this point it's very plausible he would. After Tony and Elizabeth magically reconcile, the movie decides to introduce the drug dealing subplot which is laughably and clumsily handled. Tony's boss sees that his sales numbers don't add up which would be enough for a police investigation but they only fire him and send him on his way. Then he admits to selling drugs on the side but his boss doesn't arrest him because he was really, really sorry. That must be a tremendous comfort to all the people who overdosed on the drugs he sold. The movie ends with a jump-rope competition that is just unnecessary padding (keep an eye out for the little girl in the audience who CONSTANTLY stares at the camera) before launching into full-on propaganda mode in the last fifteen minutes. It starts with Miss Clara telling Elizabeth to tell other troubled wives to go hide in their closets, segues to her house being sold to a minister who can somehow divine that the closet was used for praying, and finally resorts to outright filibustering. This is conveyed through a prayer montage that works its way up through the nation's schools (separation of church and state is merely a suggestion in this world) to those Godless heathens in Washington. This coda pretty much wrecks what little verisimilitude the movie has (which isn't much). "War Room" is a vile, preachy, and pretentious film with twisted morals masquerading as wholesome, Christian entertainment. While I can sympathize with not wanting to divorce, there must be some middle ground between divorcing after six months and staying with an abusive and cruel spouse until one of you dies. I can also recognize that there are marriages where sometimes, divorce is sadly the answer. It's a pity that this movie doesn't seem to think so. Following this movie's advice for marital troubles is not just patronizing and irresponsible, but potentially dangerous. Avoid at all costs.
Unrealistic and misleading
The movie is unrealistic as it assumes that most marriages that are in trouble are ones that can be saved. Sometimes, when you pray, and let God work, He will tear down structures that are evil in your life. God values souls over institutions - ask Jesus, who healed on a Sabbath, breaking an Old Testament command. If the movie didn't mean to portray that, then it is misleading because it doesn't contain clear caveats that this message is not generalizable to abusive marriages, where the lives of family members, particularly children, should be prioritized and safety sought. Lives have been lost due to this type of message, that victims of chronic maltreatment should pray harder. EDITED TO ADD: I just came across an abusive victim who was introduced to this movie last week and thought all she had to was to pray. What she needs is guidance on how to leave, stay safe and protect her kids. Instead, she is confused and thinks that praying her heart out will change things, when it hasn't for decades.