dansview Movies reflect the values of the people who make them. Most of those people are Liberal or even Leftist. So you get thousands of movies per year with a Liberal or Leftist perspective. One of those perspectives is that religion sucks.Whenever I see Danny Glover listed in the cast of anything other than Lethal Weapon, I expect some kind of touchy-feely message.Yet I would not consider this film anti-Catholic. Our main character is very earnest in wanting to serve both God and his congregation. He just struggles with his faith, like many people. The three-man staff of the parish is meant to represent different potential versions of priests. One is old and conservative, one is old and a bit cynical and silly, but still committed, and one is young and confused. To their credit the film makers did not make the old conservative one out to be a bad guy. No one molests children or does immoral things. But what disturbed me was that the spoiled, cynical slacker-woman character is portrayed as the righteous one who teaches life lessons to the out-of-touch clergy. Yet her life is a mess. That part is typical Indie glorification of melancholia. While the dialog hinted at profundity, it never quite gets there. The Glover character does challenge the silly woman, but he is made out to look rude, while she's the hipster. Someone should have told the main young character to loosen up, instead of just implying it. Meanwhile someone should have told the woman that trendy self-pity and dishonesty are not becoming. The Midwest college town setting and slow pace are refreshing compared to the typical L.A., New York, Chicago, Miami redundancy. But pregnant pauses and focused shots of a contemplative face do not create depth. The dialog still has to do its job.

josephryan-39287 THE GOOD CATHOLIC finds a decent young man trying to follow a path set out for him by his father, that of a Catholic priest. We can sense from the first scene his restlessness in the confines of this dogma-bound and tightly constricted role. He yearns for meaning in life and thought to satisfy that yearning in the priesthood but finds himself embracing phantoms until an edgy and clever young woman enters his life. She claims to be dying but touches him with her spark of individuality and suddenly he understands his life can be more than a period of long waiting for the end, more than fear of hell and hope of heaven. The movie evokes very powerfully the deep yearning of youth for a lifetime story of love and meaning, for experiencing something intense and alive before it's too late, the awful fear that youth has that it will never be young.

reilly-48714 This is a fantastic independent film. Jane and Daniel, finding comfort in the boundaries created by the Catholic confessional, carry you on their search for life's meaning. Father Victor and Ollie are ahead of this curve but each character struggles with accepting their humanity. Father Ollie challenges Daniel and Jane to wrestle with their frailty and flaws. Sparks fly and judgment is abandoned, until Father Victor exemplifies the voice of reason.Less movie typical, the action in the movie is caring for the sick, watching basketball,and going for a run. Endlessly refreshing you are challenged to realize the action is YOU. With wit and perfection you will find yourself asking what action will I take to live a compassionate life..

Stewball No matter what you might think this is about from the title, you're wrong. IOW, don't not see the film because of it. It's neither a polemic mocking religious faith, nor does it say anything about religion except maybe why don't we all just sit down and start over. All four primary characters are superbly cast, including Danny Glover who is about 3 steps above anything I've ever seen him in before. The subject matter is handled respectfully, albeit with liberal amounts of humor which zeros in on the fact that most religions take themselves way to seriously--which the production company apparently takes to heart, naming itself Pigasus (sic) Pictures.This is about as perfect as you can expect an independent film to be. It's only flaw is there being too much lipstick on Daniel--which is so obvious, I wondered if they just wanted to give the audience something to criticize. Needless to say, there's no actual action for the action junkies, but the dialogue and the subject matter are outstanding--and at times, profound. This is my second "10" of the year, (18th all time), the first being only a week ago, so I was wondering if coming out of the summer movie drought has something to do with it.It' doesn't'.