Machine gun Preacher - Recensioni

Vabbè, cosa volevano... un film di sei ore leeeeento? Non so quanto duri il film, ma preferisco un film che abbia un buon ritmo e che non sia noioso.
Comunque, cominciamo bene

Prendiamo nota, perchè non capita tutti i giorni di leggere una recensione di un critico che dice che Gerry è stato fantastico!!!

Machine Gun Preacher: A fantastic performance from Gerard Butler

It may have the perfect title for a lurid B-movie, but Machine Gun Preacher is in fact based on a real-life story. Sam Childers (Gerard Butler), a former drug dealer and biker who found Jesus, built a church and then set out to help the children of Sudan by not only building them an orphanage but even fighting rebels with, yes, a machine gun. Butler gives a fantastic performance as a man desperate to help in a catastrophe ignored by so many others. But Marc Forster, who previously directed Quantum of Solace, is constrained by reality, and so is left with a story that lacks much of a satisfying climax or anything like a proper ending.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/t...article2156586/

E' da annotare sul calendario!!!

Toronto 2011: 'Machine Gun Preacher' opens to standing ovation

You could feel the collective sigh of relief Sunday night coming from the filmmaker section of Roy Thomson Hall when the credits began to roll for the Toronto International Film Festival screening of "Machine Gun Preacher," the Gerard Butler-starrer about real life ex-con-turned-African-vigilante Sam Childers. The world premiere of the film, which has been a labor of love for all the parties involved — including Butler who says he made a fraction of his regular salary to play Childers — kept audience members rooted to their seats.

They only stood once the final credits rolled, and then it was to give an ovation to the filmmakers. Both Butler and Childers, who attended the festival with his wife, Lynn, stood and grabbed hands for a final curtain call.

The movie centers on Childers, a violent gun-toting ex-con from rural Pennsylvania, who turns his life around after finding Jesus and becomes obsessed with the child massacres occurring half a world away in the Sudan. He starts an orphanage that houses more than 200 children and helps fight the men who have left them orphans. His quest for vengeance and his drive to save the young people comes at great sacrifice to his wife and daughter.

The audience seemed engrossed for the often violent and disturbing film, directed by Marc Forster ("Monster's Ball," "Quantum of Solace") and written by Jason Keller. Having Childers in the audience was a great endorsement too — the 49-year-old Harley Davidson biker has made it clear he would not have been in Toronto had he not liked what he saw on the screen.

Butler, particularly, seemed quite relieved by the response. Once the lights came up, the Scottish actor, announced, "Let's go get a drink."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/201...ng-ovation.html

Da Best Mivie
Machine Gun Preacher: la prima clip con Gerard Butler

Da criminale a convertito: l’ex Leonida vola in Sudan per salvare i bambini da un triste destino in un nuovo film drammatico ispirato a una storia vera
«Ora alza le chiappe, smettila di piangere e ricostruisci tutto da capo». Sono queste le dure parole pronunciate al telefono da Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) in un supermercato degli Stati Uniti e indirizzate a suo marito Sam Childers (Gerard Butler), scoraggiato dalla difficile situazione in cui si trova, nella prima clip di Machine Gun Preacher. Sam, infatti, ha deciso di cambiare vita. Ha abbandonato una strada da criminale, si è fatto battezzare ed è andato da solo in Africa per rispondere a un’esigenza che ultimamente si era fatta sempre più stringente: rimediare al male fatto nella sua vita salvando i bambini del Sudan da un destino di soprusi e ingiustizie. In questa clip inedita del film, tratto da una storia vera, Sam sembra perdere le speranze quando il rifugio che ha costruito per i bambini del Sudan viene distrutto. Ma si sa che dietro a un grande uomo c’è sempre una grande donna. E’ la moglie di Sam, infatti, a spingerlo a continuare per la sua strada e a ricostruire tutto dalle fondamenta.

Chi nutre ancora qualche dubbio in un film drammatico con Gerard Butler forse dovrà ricredersi. Chi l’ha visto in Giustizia privata, nei panni di un padre di una famiglia assassinata e alla ricerca di vendetta, ha già avuto un assaggio della sua versatilità e in Machine Gun Preacher potrà averne conferma. E’ lui a svelarci quello che prova in un’intervista al Los Angeles Times: «Non ho parlato molto di questo film. L’ho fatto l’altro giorno e sono scoppiato a piangere. Ho pianto per quasi cinque minuti». E ad accompagnare le sue parole è lo sceneggiatore Jason Keller: «Durante le riprese ho visto Butler entrare nella parte sempre più a fondo».

Diretto dal regista di 007 – Quantum of Solace, Marc Forster, Machine Gun Preacher esordirà nelle sale statunitensi il 23 settembre 2011 (a New York City e Los Angeles) e in quelle inglesi il 6 gennaio 2012.

www.bestmovie.it/news/machine-gun-p...-butler/112927/

Recensione negativa, parla male anche di Gerry

TIFF ‘11 Review: ‘Machine Gun Preacher’ Is Essentially A Botched ‘Rambo’

In 2008’s blitzkrieg actioner “Rambo,” writer-director Sylvester Stallone recognized the real-life struggles of the people of Myanmar, dramatizing the struggle in a blood-drenched exploitation film that, despite its inelegance, emboldened the people of that region while lionizing a fictional hero of guerilla warfare. The problem with “Machine Gun Preacher,” Marc Forster’s third world drama about a real-life would-be savior who ventured into the Sudan and attempted to build an orphanage with sheer will and a smidgen of gunpower, is that it’s afraid to be “Rambo.”

Surely Forster’s got an avatar of badass in the same league as Stallone in Gerard Butler. Not necessarily much of an actor, Butler can’t really play nuance as much as he can scowl, brood and posture. But he sure makes a hell of an entrance—after a brief opening where we see the strife of the Sudanese people, Butler struts out of prison with a glower and a mullet, cursing off the guards, as the title, and the credits “Gerard Butler” and “Executive Producer Gerard Butler” are superimposed over his intimidating frame. Credit Forster for restraint, as George Thorogood’s “Bad To The Bone” doesn’t play on the soundtrack.


Butler plays Sam Childers, a biker bad boy who isn’t shy about his criminal background. Forster does everything in his power to stack the deck against the character’s likability, and the sometimes-charismatic Butler is more than willing to indulge in Childers’ demons. Within moments of leaving prison into the arms of his wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan, forever underused), he’s chastising her for quitting the strip clubs, a frustration that leads him back to his drug-abusing best buddies. When Michael Shannon co-stars as the lesser sociopath, you know you’re dealing with a nasty piece of work.

Forster plays his R-rated hand pretty heavily in these opening scenes, indulging in Childers’ possibly-factual bad boy behavior, which involves knocking off a crack house with shotgun in hand, then murdering a vicious drifter and leaving the body to rot on the sidewalk (we’re weirdly informed later in the film that he lived—oh thank God). Before Childers stumbles into church in search of atonement, it’s difficult to not morally turn on this character. At the start of the film, we’ve given the movie star handsome thug a fair shake, and he’s murdered, stolen, abused his loved ones, and taken hard drugs. From a moral standpoint, it takes a lot for someone to return from that precipice.

Childers makes the unexpected right turn of committing himself to religion, and within a few moments of exposition, he’s headed to Africa to help build churches for the impoverished. Not used to being told not to go where he wants, he finds it curious that no one will venture beyond certain demilitarized zones, and it’s not long before he’s developing connections, finding soldiers willing to support an orphanage in no man’s land. Naturally, those in power find this act of humanity a more dangerous political gesture, and so begins a series of setbacks that flummox Childers, leading to him basically becoming Rambo, and bringing in heavy artillery in his attempts to bring peace to this region.

Except Forster doesn’t even begin to question the hypocrisy of Childers’ stance, the act of using a gun to bring peace, simply by naked virtue. Childers IS Rambo, but Forster and company are afraid to admit it: a lone man wandering into a politically-volatile situation with weapons of righteousness despite not understanding the context of this struggle, and not speaking the language, but still being able to spot, and kill, the bad guys. Forster wants to bring nuance to this story, so he has moments of introspection, but only of the primitive kind: did you guess that there was a scene where Childers screams to the Heavens as he clutches the legless corpse of a child?

Back at home, tensions grow, as Childers has pooled all of his resources into saving the children of Sudan as well as establishing his own church for the wayward in his own home town. The fact that he’s losing his family comes to a head only in the most convenient of times. An early scene showcases a despondent Childers on the phone with his wife, ready to give up after rebels destroyed one of his churches, but his wife, sounding not very different from Talia Shire, tells him he needs to start building again. Never do we see this character’s conversion into an uncaring nag, which is what she becomes as she realizes her husband can no longer support the family. What, do Sudanese orphanages grow from trees?

It seems unfortunate that Butler, who apparently shepherded this project, found the need to spotlight himself in every scene, shortchanging not only the Sudanese characters (noble, quiet, conveniently introspective, possibly magical), but also family and friends back home. Michael Shannon’s criminal buddy, we’re meant to believe, cleans up his act when he learns his best friend is opening up a church. Or so we’re to believe, as he spends most of the film’s second half cheering from the background, while Childers lets him stay with his family and help around the house. Given Shannon’s typically intense performance, allowing this reformed junkie to live with the wife and kids seems like dubious decision-making on Childers‘ part. As such, when Childers’ clearly fifteen year old daughter lies in bed and asks him to read her a book while Dad is in another country, the otherwise-innocent moment has an unnecessarily upsetting context. Also, she should probably be reading to herself at that age, but that’s neither here nor there.

Like Marc Forster’s previous work, “Machine Gun Preacher” is utterly devoid of subtlety or visual imagination. Those who complained about his incoherent action scenes of “Quantum Of Solace” will get a number of shootouts with no rhythm or sense of geography. Those that found his little-seen drama “Stay” awash in murky darkness will recognize the inky incomprehensibility of this picture’s night time scenes. To those who found Forster’s understanding of children and their imaginations utterly alien in “Finding Neverland” will again see Forster’s bewilderment at how they behave. Forster is a rich man’s Joel Schumacher, and in kowtowing to the needs of a Gerard Butler Vanity Project, he’s shown us exactly how to sell out in Hollywood, by avoiding the need for an artist to have a compelling individual voice. “Machine Gun Preacher” ends up being not a Gerard Butler Showcase, nor a Marc Forster Joint, or even a tribute to the real-life Sam Childers (here seen weirdly glorifying vigilante justice in a post-credits stinger). It’s merely “Rambo” done wrong. [D]

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/arc...botched_rambo/#

E una positiva

www.blackbookmag.com/article/sept....-preacher/26982

Machine Gun Preacher
Gerard Butler with a mullet doesn’t exactly scream Oscar, but The Bounty Hunter meets Dog the Bounty Hunter this is not. Director Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball) has crafted a moving drama that could find major play come awards season. Based on the true story of Sam Childers (portrayed with a pleasantly surprising mix of gravitas and restraint by Butler), a former drug dealer who becomes a champion for Sudanese orphans, Machine Gun Preacher is not only inspiring—it’s inspired. After bottoming out, Childers, at the insistence of his wife, turns to God, and it’s through the church that he discovers his higher calling as the founder of the Angels of East Africa rescue organization. Although it’s at times almost too brutal to watch, the film’s strong supporting cast (including Michelle Monaghan and Michael Shannon) makes it impossible to look away. —Hillary Weston

Qui c'è un riassunto di quello che stanno dicendo i critici

Gerard Butler in 'Machine Gun Preacher': What Critics Are Saying

The Marc Forster-directed film is "a terrific fit" for Butler's "brand of soulful aggression -- half saint, half psychopath," writes one reviewer.
Gerard Butler returns to the big screen with director Marc Foster's Machine Gun Preacher, a true story about the life of ex-con, biker and hellraiser Sam Childers, who ended up building a community church in Pennsylvania and preaching there. Reviews have been trickling in ever since it screened at the Toronto Film Festival and many have praised Butler's performance. The film is out in theaters Friday, Sept. 23.

The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt writes that "critics will rave about Gerard Butler's fast-and-furious performance as Sam Childers. But one can't escape the nagging feeling that the film doesn't dig deeply enough into its real-life hero. The film doesn't explore all those 'whys' and whats.' "

The Guardian's Catherine Shoard writes that the film is "a terrific fit for his own brand of soulful aggression -- half saint, half psychopath." But she did bring up some things that lacked, including the fact that the film never explains what "Childers' enemies are fighting for, or much about the background of the conflict." Even so, she gave the film three out of five stars, making note that Butler also executive produced the project.

Meanwhile, Drew McWeeny at HitFix gave Machine Gun Preacher a relatively negative review, saying that the Butler-headlined action feature was strange and overly sincere, but to his credit, noted that Butler "gives a genuinely impassioned performance" and "dos his very best to give some sort of rough-hewn life to the character."
Ultimately, he writes, "I think Machine Gun Preacher means well, but even knowing that Sam is a real person, this film still ultimately feels like yet another movie in which it takes a white man from outside the culture to come save all the backwards natives from themselves and and making it a movie that focuses on kids feels like a cheap shortcut to sentiment."

Indiewire's Gabe Toro calls Machine Gun Preacher something of a Rambo, the Sylvester Stallone film released a few years prior. "Butler can’t really play nuance as much as he can scowl, brood and posture. But he sure makes a hell of an entrance — after a brief opening where we see the strife of the Sudanese people, Butler struts out of prison with a glower and a mullet, cursing off the guards," he recalls, declaring that the film doesn't showcase Butler; instead, it's "Rambo done wrong."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gera...preacher-236749

Vorrei farvi notare la percentuale sul sito Rotten tomatoes: (speriamo non peggiori perchè per ora ne ha pochine)

71%
Credo che nessun film di Gerry abbia ottenuto una percentuale così alta su questo sito!

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/machine_gun_preacher/

(Rettifico... nessun film di Gerry aveva ottenuto una percentuale così alta recentemente. L'unico altro è stato DF con 81%, poi ci sono stati HTTYD che non è un film e Shadow company che è un documentario.
C'è anche Coriolano per ora, ma credo manchino delle recensioni che ha ottenuto un 100%).

www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/gerard_butler/

Sta andando abbastanza bene....ci sono buone possibilità che lo facciano anche da noi

Ecco, recensioni precipitate.... 16 % di pomodori marci...

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/machine_gun_preacher/

Perhaps if the role had been played by an actor capable of conveying greater complexity, it could have been moving. But the way Butler plays it, this is a shoot'em-up blood bath rather than an inspiring movie.

Might have been better as a parody - except that it's already a parody of itself.

Fails to deliver an emotional impact, and that's mainly due to its schizophrenic nature. The results are a movie as disjointed as its title makes it sound.

The filmmakers may have started with a real story here. But all they've come up with is a real chore.