By Geno McGahee
I love Xmas and I’m an atheist. I don’t usually wave the atheist flag unless I get one of those pesky Jehovah’s Witnesses at my door and I can handle a religious movie. I just hate when they shove it down your throat, and that’s exactly what they did in the film “SILVER BELLS.”
Sports reporter Bruce Dalt (Bruce Boxleitner) is all about winning. He pushes his annoying son, Jason (Kenton Duty) to excel at basketball and that’s when he brings up church and made me ask myself: “What the fuck am I watching?! Is this a religious movie?!” I ignored the church comment and continual references to Jesus and kept watching because I did enjoy the over the top performance by Boxleitner.
Jason and his team of short teammates go for the basketball championship but Bruce cannot keep himself composed. He goes and heckles the referee and then costs the team the game. Out of anger, he kicks the basketball and it smashes the referee in the face. Bruce is in trouble and has let the need to win get to his head. His punishment: community service as a Salvation Army bell ringer. I hate those guys.
At first, he wasn’t into it but then he heard of a competition and began trying to win by getting the most money. He began stopping cars, running after people and demanding money. He was worse than those toothless crackheads that stand in parking lots and ask for money for the bus that they supposedly missed. I hate those people too. I know it’s the Xmas season and I have a lot of hate, but those loud bells and those toothless crackheads are not part of my Christmas. EVER!!!!!!
So, we learn about all the good stuff that the Salvation Army does and how they continually reference that the do what Jesus would do, but if there really was a Jesus, I doubt he would annoy everyone with a fucking bell. The only thing that was keeping me in this movie was Bruce, but then he became all preachy and mushy too. Usually, I would have ditched this movie a while back, BUT I’m reviewing Xmas movies and I may as well spare any other person that hates religion shoved down their throats. I also didn’t like how they ignored the darker side of the Salvation Army. I mean, I haven’t necessarily learned of anything negative but you cannot tell me that none of these bell ringers never snapped and beat a person with the bell or took a shit in their little red change bucket. Come on! They are out there and dealing with the Xmas shoppers? They have to go bat shit crazy every once in a while, right? Why wasn’t that covered? Why?!
SILVER BELLS sucks. It’s not just because it’s preachy, but there seems to be two focuses: Get people to church and get people to join the Salvation Army. It didn’t feel like a genuine movie experience. It was a message shoved down your throat.
Rating: 2.5/10
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