Faith of Our Fathers {Movie Review}

About the movie:
John Paul and Wayne are two young men in search of their fathers.  Problem is…their fathers have been dead for 25 years.  Eddie and Steven are two young men in search of their sons…whom they’ve never met.  In 1969, Eddie and Steven are with their squad deep in the jungle of Vietnam on a five-day mission to retrieve fallen comrades.  They write letters to their wives, often mentioning their love for their sons, one, who is an infant and one yet to be born.  In 1994, John Paul and Wayne go on a five day road trip to the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC to see their fathers’ names.  Along the way, reading those letters, they begin to get an understanding of who their fathers were and how they died.  Trials and mishaps, both funny and sad, complicate the road trip for the boys.  The horrors of war and the testing of faith manifest themselves for the young men in Vietnam.  Ultimately, in parallel stories – 25 years apart – the fathers and sons are bound together forever.

Runtime: 96 minutes
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13 (for brief war violence)
Production Companies: PureFlix, Samuel Goldwyn Films, The Downes Brothers, Oakwater Films

Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

My thoughts:
Note: I’ve tried not to give too much away, because I hate it when reviewers that do that!
The movie started out with a mild mannered guy, John Paul, who finds a box of his army dad’s old stuff. We find out that John Paul doesn’t know much about his dad, who died when JP was a baby, and after a bunch of phone calls, JP books a flight from California to Mississippi just to find out some info from his dad’s Vietnam war buddy. (Honestly, I don’t know what kind of mailman he is to be able to afford that, but okay.)
While there, we meet Wayne, who’s a grumpy hillbilly type, and yes, John Paul’s father’s old war buddy.  The duo ends up going on a trip to see the War Wall and all manner of slapstick, improbability and male bonding ensue. There were times that I thought it was a bit cheesy and the acting was a bit under par. But there were other times that it was superbly acted. I think it evened out enough. I wondered how the fun/silly side would do scene by scene with the war side, and I think they did a great job with it. It lightened the mood enough to not keep you in depression, but not too much that you forgot about the main point of the movie. I love how the two went from distrust, annoyance and frustration to brotherhood.
The movie is called Faith of Our Fathers, so you know there’s going to be religion in it. I didn’t find it to be heavy-handed or overly preachy though. But it did lay out the gospel message plainly and clearly. I think it would be natural for someone who loves God to talk about Him in his everyday life. During a war? Probably even more so!

Overall, I loved the movie. I highly recommend it.
And for the record, yes, I cried.

SOCIAL • CORNER
OFFICIAL WEBSITE

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

The Giveaway:
Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. 
Choice of winner is completely random and chosen by Gleam.io. Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification. US addresses only, please.
Enter to win below! 🙂
Faith of Our Fathers DVD Giveaway

God bless,
Jenn