By Geno McGahee
When you watch a holiday movie, you have to get ready for some religious stuff. I don’t mind it and it can add to the film at times, but sometimes, they really want to drive the point home. If I had a nickel for every time that somebody says “God” in this film, I could retire. BY GOD’S GRACE is inspired by A CHRISTMAS CAROL, but it has its own take on it that’s pretty interesting and amusing at times.
Chris Taylor (Cameron Deane Stewart) has taken over his dad’s business after his father died in a car wreck and he is not the nice guy his dad was. When his old man, Jim (KC Guyer) got killed along with his mother, Karen (Angela DiMarco), and young sister, Grace (Savannah McReynolds), life changed and he became a total prick. While trying to close a big deal, he gets irritated and fires his dad’s best friend and CEO of the company, right before Christmas. This film knows how to portray jerks. They do it in the most cartoony way possible.
While Chris is sitting in his office, pissed off just because he’s mad all the time, his former girlfriend, Samantha (Jillian Clare), shows up and asks for help with a home for poor kids that she works for. Of course, the company gave money every year to it when the dad ran it, but Chris considers it a bad investment and kicks her out. I wonder if he ever got counseling after his family died. That may have helped. Just being mad all the time isn’t healthy.
At home, Chris hears a noise and his dead sister, Grace, appears. She wants to change him back to the nice guy he used to be. At one time, he used to put popcorn in his nose and then launch it out as his girlfriend. OK, maybe that’s really strange and not nice. He was probably trying to be cute but hitting a girl that you just started dating with snotcorn shouldn’t go over well. Then again, he had money falling out of his ass. He probably thought “she ain’t going anywhere.”
Grace brings Chris back in time to when he was a young boy and how he developed friendships with Samantha and others. Chris is brought to his times with his dad and how great it is to be humble and to give money to the less fortunate, but it’s not clicking right away. He tells his dead sister to grow up, but she’s a ghost. As far as I know, a ghost does not age. So if you die at 8, you’re an 8 year old ghost. She can’t grow up. Besides, he should be happy to see his sister again, considering that her death and the death of his parents was the reason why he turned into king prick.
We get some very bad acting complimented by bad writing during a scene when Grace is born. The young Chris holds his newborn sister and starts talking directly to her about how he is going to look out for her and love her. They could have done without this scene. I’m not sure if the young Chris is related to the director or something, but his acting was pretty distractingly bad.
They go back to prom night and Chris picks up Samantha at her parents’ house and it was strange to see her parents so happy about it. I know that it’s a good event for teens, but the mother noted that “she’s in good hands” to her husband. You know the father was concerned about his daughter being boinked, especially by a rich dude. Even if you get mad and want to kick his ass, he’ll hire some goons to fuck you up. I guess he could have said something had the scene continued. “She’s in good hands,” and then the husband might have replied: “Good hands? That rich prick wants to nail our daughter and you have the balls to say that? Well, get me my baseball bat. I’m tracking that fucker down and I’m going to beat his dad’s ass too just for the hell of it.” That would have changed the tone of the film, but it would have been more realistic.
Chris learns that by not donating money to the children’s home, they had to close it down and one of the kids had to deal with a bad foster father (Craig Michaelson). Remember what I said about this film portraying the bad guys in a cartoonish way? Well, the foster father looks directly at the camera, talking about discipline, after he beat a young kid’s ass. It was pretty amusing stuff. He’s not the only jerk though. We also have Samantha’s potential future husband. He leaves her with the kids and gets drunk and comes home and ignores the family to watch a football game. Why would a hot chick go for some fat douchebag with zero ambition? Then again, I’ve known a few that have chosen bad spouses. So, I guess it’s realistic, but poor Chris taking the blame for all of this doesn’t seem right. Sure, he may be a dick and breaking up with Samantha wasn’t nice, but it’s not his fault that she fell into the arms of a fat prick.
When it doesn’t sink in, Grace has no choice but to show Chris his future self and the future self of one of the kids, Sara (Ariel Strahm), that he knew and had affection for. Sara once wanted to be a dancer in THE NUTCRACKER but she was cracking new nuts in the dim future, becoming a prostitute. Now, how the fuck is this Chris’s fault? I agree he’s a prick, but to blame him for everything seems wrong. He is to blame for his future self though.
Remarkably, Chris becomes white trash in the future. This film had a good idea of white trash was judging by the characters they’ve created and putting Chris in a bar, drinking, and playing pool with a flirty blonde chick screams white trash. I wish Chris would have said “my god, I’m white trash!” But he didn’t. That whole becoming white trash thing really got to him and he vowed to change his ways. I don’t blame him. Who wants to be white trash? I don’t care how much fun tractor pulls are, it’s not the right thing.
So, Chris comes back and makes things right and gives hugs all around. He went from total prick cocksucker to the nicest guy in the world, giving hugs at every turn. Remarkably, they all let him back in without challenge. I guess it’s that forgiveness thing that they kept shoving down our throats. Whatever the case, they let him off easy, but did Sara still become a hooker? I wonder…
BY GOD’S GRACE is a decent flick. Despite the constant “God this” and “God that”, it is a good watch with plenty of unintentional humor along the way. I recommend it!
Rating: 7/10
