2024’s Operation Unite opens with a man standing at the front of a church and announcing that God has told him that one of the members, a blank-faced young man named Brent (Greg Carnes), is going to be a very important person in the future. Everyone in the church is really excited, despite the fact that Brent comes across as being a little goony.
Meanwhile, at another church, Pastor Friar (Brian Scott Gilmore), peaches against “charismatic” churches. His daughter, Kaitlyn (Kaylee Keller), feels somewhat dissatisfied with her father’s sermon but she can’t really put it into words. Kaitlyn is 20 and she knows that she should be free to pick her own church to attend but, since she’s living at home, she has to do what her father wants. Her father wants her to attend his mainstream Protestant church. So be it.
When Brent sees Kaitlyn in a coffeeshop, he tells his friend that God has just told him that he’s meant to be with Kaitlyn. Normally, I’d say “Yikes!” but this film presents this as being a positive development. Kaitlyn leaves without talking to Brent but Brent says it doesn’t matter. If God wants them to be together, he’ll run into Kaitlyn again. Double yikes!
And Brent does run into Kaitlyn again. Soon, they’re dating! But how will Pastor Friar react when he discovers that his daughter is dating the newly-appointed youth minister of a charismatic church?
This film is about the conflict between different branches of Protestantism. That’s actually kind of an interesting idea and that’s certainly something you would never expect to see a mainstream film attempt to tackle. Most movies just tend to assume that all protestants are a part of the same generic church. In this film, Friar views the charismatics as being heretics and the charismatics view Pastor Friar and his congregation as being not in touch with God. Myself, I’m a Catholic so, as far as I’m concerned, they’re all heretics.
Interesting premise aside, this has all of the problems that one usually finds with low-budget religious films. The pace is deadly slow, the acting is amateurish, and the script is full of little character moments that ring as being either forced or hollow. I’ve seen a few Donald James Parker films and this definitely is one. Conversations tend to go on forever. It’s obvious that the filmmakers had no idea how to use something editing to create narrative momentum. Nearly every shot is static and uninteresting. It’s honestly difficult to watch.
Like a lot of Parker’s film, there are moments in the film when a surprising and rather disagreeable hostility bubbles up. When Brent’s youth group singing a hymn, Brent responds by scolding them for not sounding properly enthusiastic and it really does seem to go on forever. When Brent and Pastor Friar debate their beliefs, Brent comes across as if he’s about to take a swing at the man who he wants to be his future father-in-law. Self-righteous, perpetually angry, and kind of dull to look at, Brent is simply not a likable character. Not even taking into account their religious differences, I felt like Kaitlyn needed to get as far away from Brent as possible.
This movie is all about building a bridge across denominations. I just hope they eventually found a more reliable engineer than Brent.
