The film begins with Josh (Harper) and various others all going about their mornings. Many of these characters are college students, though some aren't related to the college and only tangentially related to the plot. Josh is on his way to schedule his classes, or reaffirm his already made schedule, or something like that. His Newsboys t-shirt and cross necklace tell us two things: firstly, that he is a Christian; and secondly, that the film wasn't lying when, literally five seconds ago, the opening credits stated that it was featuring the Newsboys.
Noticing the cross necklace, and probably having no clue who the Newsboys are, the guy approving schedules on the campus lawn warns Josh that his scheduled philosophy professor will eat him alive, complete with comparison to gladiatorial carnage. This is our first impression of Sorbo's character, Jeffery Radisson. The admissions guy recommends Josh take a different class, or professor, or something, anything. Josh says he can't redo his entire schedule, and it can't be that bad, and goes on with his plans.
Soon we learn that Josh's academic plans are carefully structured - he's a law student, and his girlfriend Kara gave up on going to a better school so that she could stay with him. Nonetheless, they have marginally more chemistry than anyone else in this movie, and seem like typical American sweethearts.
When Josh finally goes into philosophy class, we meet Sorbo's character at last. He is serious and straightforward, and he goes about explaining how everyone knows that God is dead, and it's not worth spending the time talking about religion that would normally be part of the curriculum. He says that as long as everyone will sign an affidavit declaring "God is dead," they can all skip that material, which students usually score poorly on anyway.
Sadly, not much time is spent talking about the phrase "God is dead," a seldom explored and oft misunderstood quote by Nietzsche, a significant philosopher whose name most people can neither spell nor say, and who many have vilified without having ever studied or attempted to understand him. Instead, Nietzsche's first, or perhaps second most well-known phrase is used in a childish, petty and blatantly unconstitutional show of force by Radisson (who seems to fancy himself quite the superman.)
The rest of the class has no problem signing off on what they're told is permission to skip a significant portion of their subject matter, but Josh is troubled, staring uncomfortably at the paper in an awkward form of acting which we will see several more times over the course of the film. In the end, Josh refuses, and Radisson insists that if Josh will not concede the fact that God is dead, that Josh must prove to the class that God exists. He lays out a variety of rules and expectations, and Josh is set on his path to do the unthinkable: to convert a bunch of Americans to Christianity.
Kara isn't happy about this. She warns Josh this could cost him his grades, and that would really muck up their pre-planned life together. Josh struggles with what to do, and, sitting for awhile in an empty church, he gets a bit of advice from Reverend Dave, a side character who we also see palling around with a Magical Negro missionary named Reverend Jude.
Tangent time: seriously, this is such a white movie, the only black characters are a guy who calls himself "G-Dog" and an African missionary with a quaintly calm wisdom, seeing God's plans for Dave through a veil of setbacks and inconveniences. Jude also has the magical power to make a stalling car start, and he can instantly tell that an injured person's ribs are shattered and that their lungs are filling with blood. Despite these gifts, he takes a backseat to Dave, because obviously. Anyway...
Dave gives Josh a bit of encouragement, prompting him to take up Radisson's challenge or else, as implied through scripture, become a horrible failure in the eyes of God. Dave then proceeds to not see or talk to Josh again, and yet continues to be a relevant character, interacting with some of the other supporting characters who have little to do with the plot.
Increasingly, that becomes one of the main flaws of the movie, in my opinion - it spends a lot of its time not really caring one way or another about the titular issue of God's death. We see Ayisha, a girl whose Muslim father forces her to wear a hijab over her face in public. I cannot find an example of anyone wearing exactly what she wears. I'm not going to say they made it up, but... I feel like they made it up.
We also meet Mina, and her mother suffering from dementia, and Mina's brother, wealthy businessman Mark (played by former Lois & Clark star Dean Cain,) who's dating rabid liberal vegan atheist blogger Amy, who attempts an ambush interview on unflappably scripted Duck Dynasty star Willie Robertson... Oh, and Martin, a stereotypically straight-laced and studious Chinese exchange student, but he's actually in Josh's class, making him one of the few relevant characters.
It turns out Mina is dating the much older Radisson, who almost manages to seem charming for about 10 seconds until we see that he's a smug a-hole who demeans and dismisses his girlfriend, further rendering him an unlikeable character in every single aspect of his life. Honestly, they couldn't even show him secretly rescuing animals, or buying Josh a coffee and telling him it's nothing personal.
Another side note: there are three break-ups of couples in this movie, all seemingly within a few minutes of each other, toward the middle of the movie. There is a severe lack of chemistry with any of them, and the terms of the break-ups are cartoonish, fake and unfelt. While they do make one Christian look bad in the process, they make two atheists look far worse, because we all know atheists are selfish people and terrible lovers who are always causing breakups and - oh.
So, the fated day comes, and Josh decides to go forward with his first presentation to win over the class. This kicks off a series of three such sessions throughout the movie, containing a handful of quotes and arguments between Josh and Radisson that, if you are somehow interested in this topic, yet have never read a single book on it nor watched any debates, might briefly captivate you.
Of course, no train of thought is followed to its conclusion, and more focus is placed on topics like big bang cosmology, evolution and abiogenesis than the slated subject of "philosophy." These far from epic intellectual clashes really only comprise a few minutes of the total movie, and hardly manage to define it or tie it together.
These classroom scenes showcase a strong lack of chemistry between the two actors who might as well be on two different screens, and they suffer from the blatantly scripted, empty roles the main characters have been given. Harper is every awkward, goodhearted American Christian teen we've ever seen or heard of, and Sorbo dances between elitist condescension, bland indifference and threatening, domineering anger, all while managing to be a bad actor.
To be fair, there is almost no humanity written into the character for Sorbo to play with. The writers have pushed past mere Straw Man arguments and started creating Straw Men characters - complete without brains. He is a bitter and repulsive Goliath to Josh's everyday David, a punching bag for the predictable conclusion of the movie's core argument, and a sacrificial lamb for the somewhat unexpected - yet contrived, and shamelessly ironic - ending of the movie.
By the time it was over, I did have to admit there were a handful of scenes that were done somewhat well, whether as attempts to tie the story together, or to impact the viewer emotionally. The cinematography isn't bad, and some of the performances are as good as you could expect from a lower budget movie. There isn't a lot that's laughably bad.
That said, all the stray plot points seem like a poor idea. Josh only interacts with a few characters briefly throughout the movie, despite there being a good dozen or so poking around. This makes it hard to convey his actual character growth or struggles. And Radisson's growth is ham-fistedly crammed into the last few minutes. More actual time could have been devoted to these two, and the movie would have been better for it. Ultimately, they are cardboard cutouts, caricatures to reinforce a particular ideology. Which brings me to my final criticism:
Intellectually, this movie is dead. It pays brief lip service to the existence of this debate, but does no justice to the deep history behind it. Everything is superficial, lacking substance. No ideas are explored. You will learn almost nothing about Christianity or about atheism by watching this movie. That's fine and all, but it shows a lack of interest in the actual topic on the parts of the filmmakers, but rather a persecution complex, and a sense of emotional distress. This film is a Christian response to a perceived threat, with a simplistic shadow of that threat puppeted on the screen.
This isn't a movie about addressing intellectually or ideologically whether or not God is dead - it's a movie about how upset some Christians are at the mere idea of God not existing, and their inversion of the issue, to depict atheists upset at God's existing.
The Good
- Mostly decent performances
- Nice camera work and environments
- Some emotionally effective scenes
The Bad
- Some bad/unnatural lines and a broad lack of chemistry
- Obvious messaging with no subtlety
- Mostly one dimensional characters; or two, where the second dimension is that they secretly want to know God and the first is that they're assholes
The Ugly
- Lack of any sympathy or positivity whatsoever toward open atheists
- The tease of actual argument and thought, with only sparse, shallow and vacuous substance to show for it
- The awkward, horrible scenes with Willie Robertson and/or the Newsboys
In a vacuum, for production quality alone, I'd give this movie a C. I'm not angry that I watched it, and it was better than most Hallmark Channel Movie Specials, but most of my interest in it was in its agenda. For having that agenda, and moreover, for the shameless and pandering way it was fed to the viewer, I'll give this movie a D-. An F would imply that it failed, when really, God's Not Dead accomplished what it set out to do: it never honestly tried to prove that God's not dead. It tried instead to undermine the argument itself, then cry out in masturbatory victory - and it succeeded.
If you agree with the title of the movie, and you don't really like atheists, liberals or academics, you'll probably enjoy God's Not Dead. Anyone else, I'd say skip it, unless you have the same morbid interest I do.
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