God's Not Dead (2014)

College philosophy professor Mr. Radisson's curriculum is challenged by his new student, Josh, who believes God exists.

Director:

Harold Cronk

Writers:

Hunter Dennis (story), Chuck Konzelman (story)

Stars:

Shane Harper, Kevin Sorbo, David A.R. White

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kevin Sorbo	...	Professor Radisson
Shane Harper	...	Josh Wheaton
David A.R. White	...	Reverend Dave
Dean Cain	...	Marc Shelley
Willie Robertson	...	Willie Robertson
Korie Robertson	...	Korie Robertson
Hadeel Sittu	...	Ayisha
Paul Kwo	...	Martin Yip
Trisha LaFache	...	Amy
Cory Oliver	...	Mina
Benjamin A. Onyango	...	Reverend Jude (as Benjamin Oyango)
Marco Khan	...	Misrab
Cassidy Gifford	...	Kara
Jesse Wang	...	Martin's Father
Lenore Banks	...	Mina's Mother

Storyline

Freshman university student Josh Wheaton attends a philosophy class, where the uncompromising Professor Radisson requires all students to submit a signed statement that the "God is dead" and never existed. When Josh refuses due to his own Christian beliefs, the Professor challenges him to defend his position that his god, Yahweh, is real, leading to a series of confrontational presentations between himself and the professor, with the class as jury. Josh's plans to go to law school depend on not failing this class. Josh's girlfriend urges him not to throw away his future with this pointless act of defiance. At the same time, Pastor Dave and African missionary Jude attempt to leave town on a trip, but are hindered by comical accidents. Student Ayisha is at odds with her father's conservative religious principles. Businessman Mark acts cynically towards his mentally ill mother, while his journalist girlfriend receives bad news from a doctor.

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Plot Keywords:

reference to spongebob squarepants | dementia | humiliation | muslim | atheism | 

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Taglines:

let the debate begin.

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for thematic material, brief violence and an accident scene

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 March 2014 (USA)

Also Known As:

Deus Não Está Morto

Filming Locations:

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$9,244,641, 23 March 2014, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$60,755,732

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$63,838,966

Company Credits

Production Co:

Pure Flix Productions,Greg Jenkins Productions,Pure Flix Entertainment

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

D-Cinema 48kHz 5.1

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Atheists have created a drinking game for the film: a shot for each time Professor Radisson says or does something no real Atheist would do, or a shot for each incident in which a non-Christian is portrayed in a negative light. Players are cautioned that no one person should play both rules at the same time.

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Goofs

When everybody stands up to say, "God's not dead," there is only one student that doesn't stand up. During filming the actor got stuck in the seat and wasn't able to leave the seat.

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Quotes

Josh Wheaton: Only a real risk can test the reality of a belief.

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Crazy Credits

At the end of the film, the concert attendees are asked to text the phrase "God's Not Dead" to every contact on their phone. The credits then read, "Join the movement Text everyone you know", inviting the movie audience to do the same.

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Connections

Referenced in Inside the Students Studio (2015)

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Soundtracks

Ones and Zeros
Performed by Stellar Kart
Written by Adam Agee and Nick Baumhardt
(c) 2013 Adam Agee Pub Designee (SESAC)/Nick Baumhardt Music Publishing (adm by Razor and Tie) (ASCAP)

User Reviews

Shallow, immature, and badly written

I'm a conservative evangelical Christian (a Calvinist in fact), and I am not exactly proud of this movie.

At times, it was actually kind of entertaining - mostly because of the laughably bad writing, but near the end there actually were some dramatic moments that affected me. Plus, sometimes I couldn't help but get caught up in the cheesy fun of watching a movie so clearly directed at members of my own community.

But overall...? Yeah. This movie had a LOT of problems, and frankly it was offensive in a lot of ways. And to be honest, it doesn't reflect very well on believers.

I think that the entire thing is supposed to teach Christians how to use apologetics to evangelize, but if that's what it's trying to do, don't expect a huge influx of converts anytime soon. The entire movie seems VERY caught up in how stupid, evil and bad non- Christians and atheists are, without stopping for one minute to recognize that HUMILITY is one of the key virtues of our faith. In truth, Christians are literally NO better than other people, and whatever difference exists in our life is not because we're smarter or more moral - it's because of Christ and Christ alone.

This movie is nothing more than an amalgamation of clichés and stereotypes that us Christians unfortunately have. It doesn't put a modicum of effort into thinking about or developing its story or characters because the story and characters already exist in the minds of the Christians watching.

As a result, the characters are all flat and badly written. Their motivations oftentimes don't make sense. They feel like total non- entities, mere objects upon which the writers rather un-subtly impose their views of the world. This is BOTH bad writing AND vastly weakens the message.

This movie, because it contains nothing that feels like "real people", has limited relevance to the real world. This is basically the movie equivalent of a kids' educational video - it may have vague outlines of characters and plot line, but they have no depth to them. The entire thing just exists to teach something in an entertaining way.

And that's actually perfectly okay. It's not exactly what I'm looking for in a movie or a Christian movie, but it's not inherently bad. I just wish they had done it in a way that didn't further prejudice and shallow understanding of other human beings.