Michael Medved reviews faith-based film ‘War Room’

Michael Medved’s movie review taken from Friday’s edition of Seattle’s Morning News on KIRO Radio.

“War Room” has had a lot of controversy and lots of business. It almost beat “Straight Outta Compton” as the No. 1 movie in the country. It’s a phenomenon and cost less than $1 million to make for, basically, a church-basement movie.

“War Room” is a PG-rated film about a marriage that is falling apart. It focuses on an upper-middle class, African-American family, played by T.C. Stallings, who is excellent. His wife is played by a new actress Priscilla Shirer, who I knew nothing about. But she is a world-famous Bible teacher and she goes on TV around the world. This is her first acting performance and she is really good.

The husband and wife don’t communicate. He’s a pharmaceutical salesman who is obsessed with his job. She’s a real estate broker. She meets an older lady, who tells her she can save her marriage through prayer. She then begins praying and various things happen.

The “War Room” is what this older lady shows the wife. It’s a closet where she suggests you strip away everything and put up Bible verses that you focus your prayers on every day.

This doesn’t sound very exciting and the movie is slow. There are parts that are heavy-handed, clunky, and embarrassing. However, the movie is extremely well-acted. It’s very well-shot and the music is effective. It’s a highly professional production and people will be moved by it. It’s very much like other Kendrick Brothers movies; two guys from Georgia who have done a remarkable job creating these movies out of nothing.

Could the movie have easily lost about 30 minutes of running time? Sure. Would it have been better if there wasn’t as much sermonizing? Sure.

The movie has come under criticism by some, who say prayer is not the sole answer to marital problems, especially in cases of emotional or physical abuse. But this is a typical non-communicative marriage. Implying emotional abuse would be overstating it.

My wife, who is a clinical psychologist, would not emphasize that people can save a troubled marriage, where the couple is not communicating, by spending more time in the closet communicating with God. It’s something that is generally not therapeutically recommended. However, to say that it would have no effect or that it doesn’t work for some families, I think, is judgmental and wrong.

It should also be noted that there is a little girl in the movie, Alena Pitts, who plays the daughter of the couple. She is wonderful; the best actress in the movie. She’s as adorable as she can be. She is one of the things that can make this movie watchable, even if you aren’t the target audience, and I’m not.

It’s another reason to give a little bit of a salute to the skill involved in the making of this movie.

I’m giving “The War Room” 2.5 stars out of 4.

Michael Medved’s movie review taken from Friday’s edition of Seattle’s Morning News on KIRO Radio.