The struggle for the true legitimacy of Christ becomes the constant battle for a tabloid reporter, in The Case For Christ. Based on the true story of an award-winning investigative journalist Lee Strobel (Mike Vogel) , an avowed atheist who applies his well-honed journalistic and legal skills to disprove the newfound Christian faith of his wife… with unexpected, life-altering results. What started as the easiest project that he claims to have ever taken, Lee soon finds himself coming to terms with the fact that everything that he has come to know might have been false, signaling a change in his life that has him living with his eyes wide open for the first time in his life. The Case For Christ is directed by Jon Gunn, and is rated PG for thematic elements including medical descriptions of crucifixion, and incidental smoking.

For a movie whose plot hinges on the importance of facts and disproving what simply isn’t proven, The Case For Christ has so very little actual facts to hang its sermon on. Make no mistakes about it, I don’t fault believers or atheists for their stances on the issue. Believe what you believe, and leave everybody else alone. My job as a critic is to grade the film for what it brings to the table for the argument. Unfortunately, this is another case of a religious movie taking its nearly two hour time table to narrate these long-winded diatribes about religion and how wrong atheists are, instead of crafting an entertaining movie that all can enjoy. I’m not foolish enough for one second to think that Christians and Catholics won’t enjoy this movie. If God is in the plot, it’s a pretty sure thing. The problem though, is that these films rarely open their arms to the uncertain members of the audience who live in the middle, often issuing a challenge in so many words of you’re either with us or you’re against us. That is my biggest problem with a majority of these movies; their alienating stance is near predictable from the get-go, and often leads you down a checklist of religious movie cliches that you can see coming from a mile away.

On the subject of some of those cliches, there are many here that kept popping up that kept me giggling like a schoolgirl. Of course there’s the obvious symbolic references; sunlight shining through the windows, illustrating a presence of God always watching his followers, crosses in the distance overlooking the disbelievers for the inevitability of their embrace of the almighty, and of course my favorite one of all; the atheist who is the biggest pig in the movie. Atheists in these movies are often given the cold shoulder long before they actually do something terrible. In God’s Not Dead, an atheist teacher gets into a car wreck and dies because he refuses to see the light. In Do You Believe? it was a divorce between a doctor and his wife because he didn’t believe. In The Case For Christ, we get an alcoholic reporter who refers to religion as “God Nonsense”. Because the answer can never be in the middle, we are often subjected to the worst in a Disney cartoon villain who can’t be a good person without the presence of religion in his life. If you can’t see the propaganda or ridiculousness behind this concept, then you won’t find anything faulty with the logic in this kind of film.

Maybe it’s story that you seek. In that case, The Case For Christ has so little of it, instead opting for a dual narrative that needs as much help to fill in the periods of downtime along the way. In addition to the God article, there’s a subplot that involves a police officer being shot by a black man, in which Lee does as much to convict the shooter as possible. As the film goes on, he finds out more-and-more that it was the cop who is hiding key details about that event, and the supposed shooter might be innocent. How this ties together is because Lee was living with his eyes closed, and that is the biggest push to Lee understanding the belief of God. This flimsy detail simply doesn’t belong in this story, and it’s only there to push the presence of an actual movie run time that would otherwise barely qualify as an after school special. The way that they tie it together in the final fifteen minutes is every bit as hokey as it is desperate, and the two plots often contrive one another, instead of building to a sum of greater parts. Because we all know where the finale is heading, there’s no point in hiding it; Lee does in fact become a believer. The problem is that this stance doesn’t feel like a steady transformation, but more of a beating down into submission so he and his family can return to being whole. There’s never that moment that should trigger his immense feeling of doubt, and without it this debate often feels like a draw, instead of a captivating verdict that can solidify the film’s existence.

I mentioned earlier that facts don’t play to many arguments in this movie, and that is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of The Case For Christ, not only in title but also in debate. Some of the tiers to the argument for are that over 500 witnesses saw Christ when he was resurrected. The movie conveniently ignores the fact that most of these witnesses were believers to begin with, and the lack of integrity within their own moral fiber rarely comes into question. There are also pieces of original bible pages and cloth from Christ that are shown, never once questioning the authenticity of their presence. I found out when I was 10 years old that my Dad was able to get Charles Barkley to autograph my birthday card, only later finding out that he was a master in forging signatures. My point is that without digging deeper this only solidifies how terrible of a reporter Lee is, and can easily be persuaded. In fact, it’s probably an appropriate measure that this movie does take place during the 70’s because a lot of what the movie calls facts have since been disproved by modern science with literally thousands of articles on the origin of this central figure. Interesting how that doesn’t come into play during this movie.

What does hold the movie up is a production quality that surprisingly accurately articulates the cultures and landscapes of the disco generation. Major props goes to the set designers who cast many colorful tributes to the days of hairspray oversaturation, as well as muscle cars and bell-bottom jeans that were all the craze. The movie does a solid job of capturing the essence of its respective decade, some imagery of Tootsie Blow Pop commercials, as well as a collection of 70’s rock ballads like ‘Carry on Wayward Son’ to compliment the montage scenes that orchestrate well to Lee’s quest. Speaking of musical accompanyment, the movie also has some scintilating tones composed by that of religious film composer mainstay Will Musser. Usually his scores are a bit meandering, but here he tunes at the essence of tabloid drama films like Spotlight and The Paper to command a piano driven synth that plays to that big budget presentation.

The Case For Christ doesn’t quite present the best case for religious supporters seeking a movie worthy of their faith. It’s a logic-lacking, jumpy narrative that often grasps at paper thin straws of circumstance to debate the doubters who have since debunked their theories and holes. Thankfully, there are some excelling aspects to the production qualities of the movie that reaches a little deeper into the Pureflix wallet than other films before it. Strobel would be better debating the hypocrisy of different films uttering the same stances. At least then we might get somewhere with giving these movies a fresh direction.

4/10