Machine Gun Preacher

Although not the B-movie its title implies, director Marc Forster’s film does have some ’sploitation going on. Gerard Butler gives a flattering impression of the real-life Pennsylvania roughneck Sam Childers, whose severe spiritual rehab required building and militantly defending a warlord-besieged Sudanese orphanage. Michelle Monaghan plays his languishing missus, Michael Shannon a fellow biker-junkie pal, and Souleymane Sy Savane a freedom-fighter befriended by Childers in Uganda with a Coke and a smile. With its dubiously inspirational framework, this seems like a story that hasn’t quite worked out its position on deadly force. Abetted by Forster and screenwriter Jason Keller, Butler explores reckless bravado as a dynamic physicalization of faith, but doesn’t much examine it. Sober closing-credits statistics aside, all the film really says about the war in Sudan is how mad it made this one guy.