Fireproof
Movie Review
by Jim Bob Howard
I am assuming they really don’t have a thing for movies that start with F, but I know that the folks at Sherwood Pictures definitely have a thing for producing movies that portray the life-changing reality of a life lived out for Jesus. And I know they are excellent storytellers!
If you haven’t heard of Facing the Giants and Flywheel, let me encourage you to stop reading now and go to the nearest video store, pick up both of them, and watch them tonight with your family. After you do, I want to tell you about the third film from the movie company that looks a great deal more like a church than an independent film company. That’s because it is a church: Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia.
The Little Movie Company That Could
Following on the heels of Facing the Giants—with its $100K budget and $10M is ticket sales, Sherwood Pictures is now set to release its third film, Fireproof, this month. Written and directed by Alex Kendrick and starring Kirk Cameron as Capt. Caleb Holt of the Albany Fire Department, it is a movie that shows the vanity of laboring to build a house without Christ as the foundation.
Though Cameron—best-known as Mike Seaver on television’s Growing Pains—is no stranger to being in front of the camera, this role was different than what he has been used to. “I’ve never had to audition for nine emotionally-draining scenes in order to get a role,” Cameron admits. “But I did for Fireproof. They not only auditioned people for their acting abilities, they interviewed them to find out what was going on with them personally, spiritually. And they wanted people who were going to be able to represent real Christians in this movie.”
Don’t Leave Your Partner Behind
“Marriage [in today's culture] is hemorrhaging,” continues Cameron, “because people don’t know what it is. They’ve never read the instruction manual on it.” Fireproof aims to strengthen marriages by pointing husbands and wives to the Creator of marriage, Jesus Christ, and His instruction manual, the Bible.
“It’s a love story that starts after most romantic comedies end—with a marriage,” says producer Stephen Kendrick. “But this marriage is on a downward spiral.” After seven years of marriage, Caleb and his wife Catherine have decided to divorce. Caleb’s father steps in and asks him wait forty days. He sends Caleb a book called The Love Dare, a forty-day devotional on unconditional love, each day ending with an action item to perform that shows love to his wife. He agrees to give it a try, but his heart is not really in it. And it’s backfiring on him because Catherine does not want to work on their marriage; she just wants out.
“About half-way through the movie, [Caleb] finally gets so frustrated with Catherine because she’s not receiving his love,” says Kendrick, “that he asks his father, ‘How can I continue to love somebody who’s constantly rejecting me?’ His father replies, ‘Caleb, you can’t give Catherine something you don’t have.’ He goes on to explain that Jesus’ dying on the cross was the epitome of unconditional love.” The rest of the movie is Caleb rebuilding his marriage on Christ.
A Higher Standard
The makers of the film took great pains to present a romantic story without jeopardizing the actors in it. In one scene where the Holts kiss, for example, Cameron’s wife, Chelsea Noble stands in—in silhouette—for Erin Bethea. However, Fireproof does deal with adult themes we recommend you screen before allowing your children to view the movie. Though resolved in the end, emotional infidelity, uncontrolled anger, pornography, passive men, and controlling women are all presented— with a high “realness factor,” says my bride—as obstacles to a God-honoring marriage.
Doing Your Part
Knowing a little of the story of how this little church in Albany started impacting the culture through movies, I knew this project wasn’t just about getting a movie out that would generate income so they could make the next one. I asked Stephen what they are doing to prepare churches to minister to those who are going to come out of this movie facing their own sin and failures in their marriage.
“That’s a great question! We definitely don’t want people to go see a movie and just be moved emotionally. And then walk out of the theater and say, ‘Well, that was a pretty good movie,’ and go home and do nothing. We want to give men practical ideas they can implement immediately.”
“We have partnered with Marriage CoMission, Focus on the Family, FamilyLife, and many others to set up a website, www.fireproofmymarriage.com, which will link visitors to great biblical marriage resources.”
Fireproof opens nationwide on September 26, 2008.
(Homeschooling Today magazine - September/October 2008)
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