You see videos and photos about the civil war going on in parts of Africa, you read stories about the atrocities and mass killings but besides a momentary feeling of horror and sickness, it’s normal to just go along with your day. However, one person was so inspired that he actually did something about itA biopic action film, Machine Gun Preacher is about the redemption of Sam Childers, a former ex-convict turned preacher. Childers, a rough-around-the-edges biker, starts out in the movie as freshly out of jail and happily returning to his old ways. But when a life changing experience causes Childers to turn to God to atone for his sins, he ends up on a mission trip to Sudan. During his trip, he first handed witnesses the crimes committed by the Lord’s Resistance Arm (LRA), a guerrilla military group operating in northern Uganda and South Sudan.Soon after his trip, he returned to run a mobile clinic before venturing further into the war zone of Southern Sudan, there he and his wife, Lynn, founded and built Angels of East Africa, the Children’s Village in Southern Sudan. While running an orphanage for the kids whose lives had been ruined by the LRA, Childers began armed missions to rescue children from the LRA which sparked the name “Machine Gun Preacher” among the locals.
In the movie, Sam Childers is played by the Scottish actor Gerard Butler, known for his roles in “Phantom of the Opera”, “300” and “Law Abiding Citizen”. Butler’s portrayal of the gun toting preacher seems natural to him, looking as muscled as he did in “300” but with a few more gang tattoos from his “wild” days.
Childers’ wife, played by “The Heartbreak Kid” and “Eagle Eye” star, Michelle Monaghan has to suffer through first his unruly ways and then his complete dedication to the kids of his orphanage. Monaghan’s performance is mediocre, not as completely dedicated to the role as Butler is. She is unable to completely get into the role of the wife, and some of her scenes just seem bland and forced.
However another role that was filled perfectly was played by Michael Shannon as Childer’s tragic best friend, Donnie. It was easy to think that Shannon was the drug addicted biker who was Childer’s old partner in crime. The hard, gut-wrenching scenes that are normally so hard to pull off, are executed perfectly, leaving Donnie one of the most emotional characters in the movie.Besides a few minor setbacks in the movie, Machine Gun Preacher is one of the few movies this year that actually touch you and even more when you realize that it’s a true story.With beautiful scenery, emotional struggles and thrilling battle scenes, the movie tells the true story of a man who managed to run both his life in the United States as a preacher and his life in Africa as a unlikely gun-wielding savior.
