For some reason this was on Netflix and for some other reason my lady decided we should watch it so we could have a laugh at the expense of discount God's Not Dead. And make no mistake when I write those words, don't take it lightly, people: this is *discount* God's Not Dead. In every way shape and form this is about some alternate reality called Super-Scaredy-Cat-Christian-Pants land where the filmmakers see Christians as oppressed and all atheists as hard-headed scumbags who want to stop all of these good-hearted (sometimes, as in this case, seemingly broken) people from just practicing their religion in schools or colleges or who knows what else!
I mean, come on, people!
The problem here is that this has Stephen Baldwin. Let that also sink in: Stephen Baldwin, who has the voice of brother Alec, but his face looks like it's been run over by several angry water-buffalo and reconfigured to have the same expression all the time - even post car accident scene where character's wife dies in one of those goofy car accidents with him saying "my love" and "babe" in unconvincing ways - and he is the lead in this story that's supposed to be some inspiration pap about him overcoming his wife's death by setting up an *afterschool* Bible club. And the problem is.... huh? Oh, yeah, there's a couple of high schoolers who want to mess with the guy by making up some stuff in the Bible club, and then one guy (who you know is meant to be sexy to Baldwin's daughter because, oh God, his HAIR man!) who's father with the glued-on beard(!) is all against them because... FAITH MAN!
The conflicts here are wholly unconvincing - maybe also HOLY unconvincing too! Puns aside, this is such bland material, all acted and meant to be with sincerity, but it's badly performed and written and directed with a taste for dumb montages showing, uh, jogging, and, again I must stress here, STEPHEN BALDWIN! I think I could let his less than one dimensional character/performance go if there was something else to latch on to, some actor or person with a heart-beat with some craziness or personality or screen presence (i.e. God's Not Dead, much as that is an insulting mess, has Kevin Sorbo who makes the antagonist someone to reckon with). Here everything is so soft and safe but it's nevertheless a piece of tripe on just its filmmaking - even if you agree with this message (with, well, should I argue with that, we'd be here all night), the actual *cinema* part of it, that it's a 90 minute filmed piece of entertainment, fails on those grounds.
I frankly couldn't even finish this, so I can't tell you how it ends. If you get to a product like God's Club and it flatlines at minute one, odds are good it won't get a heartbeat. And lo and behold, this was unable to resuscitate even as a fun-bad movie. It's just... boring.
