Machine Preacher

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Product Description ------------------- Machine Preacher is the inspirational true story of Sam Childers; a former drug-dealing criminal who undergoes an astonishing transformation and finds an unexpected calling as the savior of hundreds of kipped and orphaned children. Gerard Butler delivers a searing performance as Childers; the impassioned founder of the Angels of East Africa rescue organization in Golden Globe-nominated director Marc Forster's moving story of violence and redemption. When ex-biker-gang member Sam Childers (Butler) makes the life-changing decision to go to East Africa to help repair homes destroyed by civil war; he is outraged by the unspeakable horrors faced by the region's vulnerable populace; especially the children. Ignoring the warnings of more experienced aide workers; Sam breaks ground for an orphanage where it's most needed in the middle of territory controlled by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA); a renegade militia that forces youngsters to become soldiers before they even reach their teens. But for Sam; it is not enough to shelter the LRA's intended victims. Determined to save as many as possible; he leads armed missions deep into enemy territory to retrieve kipped children; restoring peace to their lives and eventually his own. The explosive; real-life tale of a man who has rescued over a thousand orphans from starvation; disease and enslavement; Machine Preacher also stars Michelle Monaghan and Kathy Baker. .com ---- Machine Preacher takes a fictionalized look at the life of Sam Childers, a down-and-out ex-con who found God and an obsessed new calling: to save the orphaned children of southern Sudan. Gerard Butler plays Childers, whom we first meet as a brutish addict, and the actor's gutsy performance has everything to do with making us follow him through the film's winding, globe-spanning turns. Whether delivering an overheated sermon (you get the idea Childers has replaced one addiction with another) or toting firearms through the dangerous back roads of Africa, Butler presents a forceful creation, one that reminds us that Childers is far from a conventional sympathetic hero. In fact, director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) is so busy exploring the psychological ambiguities of the character he neglects to give the movie a basic, driving momentum, which might make you wonder what exactly it is you're watching from time to time: inspirational religious fable, action picture, or political drama? Michelle Monaghan (Source Code) does duty as Sam's born-again wife, who must endure the usual domestic hardships related to her husband's frequent absences from home, and Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) plays Sam's old biker buddy, reformed to become the world's worst babysitter. In bringing up the horror stories of warfare and atrocity in southern Sudan, the movie has noble ambitions, and its R-rated nature means it doesn't skimp on the terrible details. Still, it tends to fall a little too easily into the format of the white guy saving the African people, an example of the way the movie's various subjects seem, overall, a little undigested. --Robert Horton