Courageous brings a new perspective to the role of Christian fathers by examining the life of a police officer. In the film directed by Alex Kendrick, who also directed the movie Fireproof, the main characters are influenced by the Bible to develop Christian-based ethics of fatherhood. This movie was released Sept. 30.

The movie starts by introducing law enforcement officers, Adam Mitchell (Alex Kendrick), Nathan Hayes (Ken Bevel), David Thomson (Ben Davies) and Shane Fuller (Kevin Downes). The movie shows their lengthy work days taking precedence over their family relationships. The story continues when Javier Martinez (Robert Amaya), a construction worker who was recently laid off, meets Adam by mistake. This would seem to be a coincidence, but it appears to be a part of God’s plan for each of their lives.

Each of the men are caught up in their jobs and unable to spend time with their families, causing weak relationships.

As Adam is showcased as having a mediocre family life, he is confronted with a tragic life change. Broken by the event, he attempts to fix the relationship with his son Dylan Mitchell (Rusty Martin Jr.) by making up resolutions based on biblical principles to follow as a father figure to his family. He asks his five friends if they will sign the resolution page and keep him accountable.

From then on, the friends grow closer together in their relationships with one another due to their accountability for each other. However, some find the process much more difficult than others do, and struggle to stay true to the resolutions.

Undertaking the process of improvement day by day, they eventually get the hang of becoming more involved in their family relationships and ultimately grow as Christians.

Although the big picture ending felt abrupt, each man’s unique story and the theme of having courage ties everything together and creates a quality conclusion. Altogether, the movie was inspirational, creating a family-felt atmosphere that was very emotional, but also humorous.

Though to most viewers, Courageous would seem like a sub-par movie, the filmmakers worked their best with the resources provided for them. They created a highly enjoyable film despite lacking the high quality graphics and high-tech special effects of normal secular movies.

Christian band Casting Crowns wrote the song, “Courageous,” to be a theme song for the film. For me, this served as a reminder of the theme after seeing the film. It created a tie to my feelings of guilt that I experienced during the movie for failing to be a proper role model.

At first glance, this movie did not look very appealing, and I thought the film was solely based on the fact that the men were police officers. However, the movie could have the characters working in any other time-consuming occupation, but this detail is not the real point of the movie. Looking further into the movie, it shows how these men recognize their lack of commitment to their families, and were able to change.

This was one of the best inspirational Christian movies that I have come across. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for a movie to entertain and to encourage integrity. Although Courageous directly focuses on the role of fathers, its encouragement pertains to all spiritual leaders.

Running for 130 minutes, Courageous is rated PG-13 for some violence and drug content. It is currently playing at some local theaters. For tickets and showtimes, visit Fandango.

For more movie reviews, read the Sept. 15 article, Filmmakers implement clever techniques in ‘Contagion’.

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