Review: Frank VS God – ‘The Best Christian-”ish” film of the year’

HIC's in there 17 June 2014 | 0 Comments

The Best Christian-”ish” film of the year (so far)

Frank vs. God is one of my favorite films thus far into the movie year, and without a doubt one of the better “religious” films of those recently released. The plot is believable, the acting is credible, and the humor is comically ironical rather than based on salacious behavior–all elements which give it a definite edge over the other films directed at the same demographic.

The plot follows the developments of a lawsuit brought to the Florida state court by renowned attorney David Frank (Henry Ian Cusick).

While he is visiting his niece on her birthday, Frank’s house is destroyed by an inexplicable tornado. Frank claims his house to insurance only to be told that a certain clause in the contract expressly denies compensation to a homeowner if his house is damaged by tornadoes, hurricanes and a number of of other natural weather patterns and storms since they are deemed ”acts of God.” It is this language which sends Frank over the edge and into the court-room, calling for a full-court press on and prosecution of the One and Only, the Beginning and the End–God.

The plot summary suggests a sort of far-fetched illegitimate sketch of a movie which very likely could have ended blasphemously. (Though with the nature of some of the lawsuits being brought to court today, I don’t know how far-fetched it really is). Nonetheless, I think it did not.

I am by no means legal scholar, but I did study law at the undergraduate level. From the perspective of one with such a background, I thought that the film’s depiction and portrayal of the legal proceedings inside the court-room–even down to the politics involved in a judge’s preliminary decision to hear a case–were better researched than one expects from a comedy movie. It is this layer of realism which grounded a somewhat far-fetched plot and kept the film in the realm of satire rather than farce.

Writer-director, Stewart Schill (who also directed episodes of the TV series Dexter and Charmed) clearly did his research–even going so far as citing recent Supreme Court rulings in the film’s script. This kind of research is difficult, it takes time and effort to read, comprehend, and then incorporate such findings, yet Schill does a commendable job.

The film is humorous, comical, and trusts the audience’s intelligence more than many faith films typically do. It seemed with Heaven is For Real, for example, that much of that film’s humor surrounded situational irony, which was humorous, but lacked a certain edge. Frank vs. God employs puns, innuendos, and other various rhetorical devices. The funny quips which Frank uses are subtly humorous–maybe not laugh out loud funny–entertaining and refreshing.

That being said, while nothing in the film is inappropriate for children, the film itself, because much of the humor revolves around irony, may be better appreciated by a more mature audience.

On the topic of audience, though the film without a doubt has a religiosity about it, by no means do I see Frank vs God as proselytizing. The loss of his house is for Frank the final catastrophe in what seems to have been years of dealing with loss, death, and general misfortune; Frank says during the trial, “either God is merciless and cruel, or He doesn’t exist.” These are questions that anyone in today’s society might ask–ones for which everyone wants answers.

These questions are topical but by no means new. In his Confessions, St. Augustine struggled to define and understand the nature of God, just as he sought to discern the nature and origin of evil. The Manichees also dealt with this same issue, positing that God was of a dualistic nature–both good and bad. The Book of Job, one of the oldest in the Hebrew Bible, is rhetorically structured similarly to a court case.

N.B.: There is one lingering issue I have with statements made by characters in the film that assign God blanket responsibility for all bad circumstances–accidents, diseases, deaths. Claiming God to be the impetus behind such calamities is a dangerous game to play. My Christian ethics warned us against such statements saying that questions like “Why does God allow bad things to happen?” have the propensity to render God responsible for such occurrences regardless of how they are answered. We must be careful when we make such assertions as they have two consequences: one, they push evil back to God, and two, they remove human responsibility. We must recognize that we have a hand in the happenings on earth and not use God as a means to duck any moral accountability.

This one caveat withstanding, the film is without a doubt one to be see–a humorously intriguing film capable of touching its audience.

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Claudia Mundy is a Campbell University graduate. She is a writer, a reader, and a runner. You can follow her on Twitter at @ClaudiaMundy.