2016’s Glorious tells the apparently true story of Vince, a kid from Chicago.

Vince (played, as a child, by Gabriel Aaron Zavelta) starts life with a lot to overcome.  For one thing, his family is poor.  He’s never met his father and his mother (Olga Cunningham) is often busy at work, leaving Vince alone with his stepfather (Paul D. Morgan).  Vince’s stepfather is quickly established as being a cruel and abusive man, one who looks for any excuse that he can find to beat Vince.  When, after taking a shower, Vince drips water on the “clean rug,” his stepfather sees that as an excuse to take Vince into the basement and whip him with a belt.  At school, Vince never fits in and is introverted and shy.

It’s not until a local gang leader take an interest in Vince that Vince starts to feel more confident about his life.  After Vince withstands a violent initiation, he is praised for being tough and resilient and the sad thing is that this is probably the first time that Vince has ever been praised in his life.  Soon, Vince is leading a double life.  At school and at home, he’s still the shy kid who struggles to express himself.  On the streets, he carries a gun and has no hesitation about opening fire on a car being driven by a rival gang member.  In one of the film’s more shocking moments, he even opens fire on another student, shooting him outside of the school.  Vince may pretend to be hard but the guilt gnaws away at him.  When the cafeteria lunch lady gives him an accusatory “I saw what you did,” greeting, Vince looks like he’s about to cry.

Vince eventually ends up doing several stints in juvenile hall.  Finally, the teenage Vince (now played by Darcy Grey) is accepted into a program that is designed to rehabilitate youthful offenders.  He has to work maintenance for a school while attending chapel on a daily basis.  Initially skeptical, Vince sticks with the program and starts to turn his life around.  However, every time that he is released from juvi, his past is waiting to catch up with him.  No sooner has Vince met and fallen in love with Cynthia (Tanya Nungaray) than his former friends are trying to gun him down.  Can Vince escape his past or is he destined to be brought down by it?

Glorious is a low-budget but earnest look at one man’s search for redemption and it’s actually not that bad at all.  The actors are all convincing in their admittedly thinly written roles and director Juan Daniel Zavaleta keeps the action moving at a good pace.  One reason why the film works is because Vince doesn’t automatically become a saint.  The film makes clear that, even as he commits to no longer being a criminal, Vince still has a long way to go.  Unlike so many other faith-based film, Glorious does shy away from the difficulties that the main character is going to continue to face.  At the same time, the film does highlight the importance of trying rehabilitate — rather than just blindly punish — the incarcerated.  That’s something about which I feel very deeply and it’s obvious that this film does as well.

The budget’s low and occasionally, the film relies a bit too much on the shaky camera gimmick to create tension but, otherwise, Glorious is an effective look at one man’s path to redemption.