Machine Gun Preacher
Sam Childers (Gerard Butler), a former biker, decides to go to East Africa to help repair homes destroyed by civil war. There he becomes a crusader for hundreds of Sudanese children who've been forced to become soldiers.
23 March 1976, Winthrop, Iowa, USA
18 March 1996, Los Angeles, California, USA
October 02, 2012
Despite a competent performance from Butler, Machine Gun Preacher tackles way too much material to present a cohesive onscreen telling of the Sam Childers story.
October 07, 2011
In telling a true story, ambiguity can be an asset; but instead of mapping a middle course, director Marc Foster veers between two kinds of falsehoods.
September 30, 2011
What a surprise. Its grindhouse title notwithstanding, "Machine Gun Preacher" is a genuine drama.
September 04, 2012
It's an uncomfortable marriage of sentimental genre conventions and real-life tragedy shown with graphic detail. It does bring you inside the main character's internal struggle, but doesn't seem focused enough as it sways into action film territory.
July 28, 2013
it can be a bit... preachy, if you pardon the pun
November 01, 2011
The need to cram in facts and events makes 'Machine Gun Preacher' feel too much like one large and needlessly glossy montage sequence.
October 06, 2011
The clichés fly like so many spent bullet casings...
February 11, 2013
With an exploitation-friendly title like Machine Gun Preacher you'd think this movie would be the soul brother of Hobo With A Shotgun. Unfortunately, that is not so.
May 03, 2012
With all the talk of "Kony/KONY 2012" wending its way into the culture, this movie gives a vivid picture of who this villain is and why the world should be doing something about him.
September 30, 2011
Why is it that uplifting movies based on true stories often feel so untrue and fall so flat?
June 15, 2012
We're given surprisingly little food for thought when it comes to the question of the complicated tensions between Christian faith and violence.
September 30, 2011
What looks on the surface to be yet another inspiring story of one man's salvation turns out to be instead both an examination of modern atrocity and a rethinking of the burden/beauty of belief.
