This movie had good chances to be awesome. Butler is an good actor and the plot is very intriguing but it somehow fails anyway. The movie has a profound message and the scenes in Sudan and Uganda feels almost as horrible as they should be. However I do think the director has focused too much on this man's, Sam, anger. I would have like to see more depth to his way to finding God. There is also a lot of jumping in time, too fast to give the movie a solid ground. The overall score is OK but I expected more from this movie. However it is worth seeing, the horrific parts in Sudan and Uganda in this movie are still happening in more places in the world.

"Machine Gun Preacher" tries to tap into the sympathy of the audience with a real life story, but the movie ended up being entertaining for what it was, but it was a mediocre experience at best.The story is about Sam Childers, a reformed criminal and substance abuser, who finds God, builds a church and then goes to Sudan to help the needy in a war-torn country.Personally, I found the story a bit too sappy and too much of a goodie-two-shoes, but then again, I don't buy into the whole Christian concept. But that is a personal preference, of course.Gerard Butler put on a good performance, although it was a bit out of his usual area of acting. But it is nice to see actors branch out to new things and genres.This movie is not the type of movie that you watch more than once. While the work that Sam Childers have done is commendable and commendable, the story in the movie just doesn't have enough weight to support multiple viewings. For me, this movie just didn't pack enough punch to really be a great movie, despite of however larger-than-life compassion for life and selflessness it tried to tell.

There seems to be more and more true story biopics coming these days and machine gun preacher is another one. The premise of this film sees a gang member/turned Christian attempt to rescue a bunch of kids in the Sudan. I like Gerard butler, he has been in good movies like 300 and bad movies like the bounty hunter. This is probably the best performance he has ever given. His character is so motivated and has so much belief in what he is doing that you really root for him and want him to succeed. But there was also allot of damage to his character as he unravels during the film and butler has some really fantastic power scenes. Michelle Monahan is pretty good in the movie as his wife. She was a pretty strong character I just wished she did more and the same could be said about Michael Shannon's character. I felt the supporting performances were fine but this was butlers movie. The story was really good as you see the lengths that this one man goes to do what he thinks is right. You see him starting to unravel and I think the film depicts him and his character in a very good way. He is a flawed hero and you see that but you want to like his character and get behind him. The script was okay with some really good dramatic dialogue. I just felt the dialogue between him and his family wasn't that good and there was absolutely no humour in this film. The style was pretty good with showing some brutal stuff but I kind of wish it had gone a bit grittier with the whole situation and showed us even more. Overall this was a much better film then I expected and I liked it.

I felt this movie deserved an 8 and that slowly trickled down to a 7 at the end. The beginning things moved well but halfway through nothing new happens, it turns into a pointless drama then ends. In my opinion this movie should have stuck to one genre and i think it would have done better. Machine gun preacher starts edgy and brutally realistic, turns to a stand still drama and ends like a documentary. Some of the dialog and scenes are aggressive and not politically correct but makes no statement just like it was thrown into the movie for realism and nothing else. There are lots of scenes where i get the feeling that certain groups of people will take offense to but does nothing with it. Take American History X for example they pushed obvious boundaries but made statements that made it not as offensive and balanced at the very end. This movie is worth watching, i just feel with better direction it would have been better liked and better received