By Geno McGahee
“Jesus man.” – Dan (David A.R. White)
I don’t often review Christian films. I hardly ever watch them, but I’m open-minded and I did enjoy GOD’S NOT DEAD. So, giving SECOND GLANCE a chance made sense, especially when I heard of the storyline. It sounded like it would be terribly good and it was. Starring David A. R. White of GOD’S NOT DEAD, this film concerns a teenager that is not having any fun because he’s Christian and all of the cool kids and hot chicks are not. He makes a wish to get away from his faith and finds out that things go terribly wrong, proving that he was on the right path to begin with.
Dan (David A.R. White) is in high school and is part of a group of Christian athletes that don’t get a lot of respect. He wants to date Tamara (Denise Weatherly) but he gets shot down because he’s just a “nice guy.” He is also going to be missing a huge party and he’s not happy about that. All of the cool kids like Doug (Lance Zitron), who stole the style of Joey Buttafuoco, get the girls and find amusement in the good nature of Dan, adding to the frustration of the teen that desperately wants to fit in.
Although Dan is struggling, he does have one kid that looks up to him. His friend, Scotty (John Jimerson), idolizes him and even fist pumps Dan and says “Jesus man.” The school bully, Bull (Jim Whitehead), seems to like Dan, but he has big problems. He wants to beat up everyone that talks to his girlfriend but he has bigger problems. Bull looks like he’s 40 years old and he’s still in high school. I know he’s stupid, but they should have pushed him through by now. Now that I think of it, Tamara looks like she’s thirty-five-ish. This high school must be brutally tough to get through to hold all these people back.
At home, Dan makes a wish that he wasn’t a Christian, and when he wakes up the next morning, things are drastically different. He has a terrible tie-dyed shirt and awakes in a messy room. He jumps back in shock when he sees a poster of a painted woman on his wall. It wasn’t a very good picture. Have you ever known any cool guy that wore a tie-dyed shirt? I think that they should have done better than that. I was in high school in 1992, the year this film was made, and I can honestly say that the guys in tie-dyed shirts did not get the girls. The guys in heavy metal tee shirts didn’t either…but we’re not talking about me here.
The house is filthy, his parents are now divorced, and his sister Jenny (Mandy Posey) never existed. When Dan goes outside, he meets up with Muriel (Blaine Pickett), an angel that informs him that god has granted his wish. He is now going to have an idea of what it’d be like to not be a Christian, and things don’t go very well. On the good side, he is now dating Tamara and is friends with Doug and is widely considered cool by his classmates. One big change that is immediately noticed is the absence of his teacher, Mr. Milner (David Allen). Milner was a real prick that would walk around the classroom with a chip on his shoulder as he tore apart his class, but he had a soft spot for Dan because he was also Christian. In this new reality, Milner went crazy and quit his job as a teacher and is now working fast food, and he doesn’t do that well either. When he sees Dan and his friends, he walks over to wait on them and goes off on them. I used to manage a Roy Rogers back in the day and if one of my employees acted like Milner, they’d be gone. They’d be gone if their name was Milner.
The “Jesus man” friend, Scotty killed himself in this new reality. Without Dan guiding him and inspiring him, Scotty took his own life. This is devastating for Dan, but he should take no ownership in that. Obviously there was something wrong with Scotty and if he didn’t get help, it’s on him. Why would God snuff him out in this reality? That wasn’t fair to poor Dan. All he wants to do is go to a party or two, get with some girls, and have some fun. Muriel speaks really strangely too and wears a weird mock turtleneck. He is also very hairy and I would suspect that if angels exist, they don’t have excess hair. That’s ungodly.
Dan finds out that Tamara only wants to be with him because he is popular and then Bull and his meathead buddies want to pummel him. Scotty is dead. Without his faith, God punishes him hard, but this was just a glimpse…like FAMILY MAN with Nicolas Cage. Right when Bull is about to beat him to death, he awakens and Muriel is standing there and the discussion shifts to sex. What is this obsession with sex that these Christian movies have? Muriel notes that Dan should be a virgin before marriage and so should his wife. He then tells him that everything is back to normal, including his parent’s relationship, Jenny, and Scotty not being dead.
Without a tie-dyed shirt, Dan returns, rejoices and hugs his family and then goes to school. He pushes his faith on everyone whether they want to listen or not, including Doug, and then finds Scotty. This time, Dan fist-pumps and says “Jesus man.” As the ending credits rolled, I wondered what I just witnessed. This was a very strange movie, but a very amusing one. Written by six people and directed by Rich Christiano, SECOND GLANCE is a very enjoyable movie. It’s so absurd that it’s impossible not to enjoy. As an atheist, I’ve never thought that there would be any reason for me to watch any Christian movie but the ridiculousness of films like this was reason enough.
David A.R. White does a good job in this role and I enjoyed Blaine Pickett. I’m not sure Pickett was directed to talk like he had issues with his jaw and overall speech, but whatever the case, it was tremendous. I highly recommend SECOND GLANCE. I laughed the entire way through.
Rating: 7/10
