In the 2003 film, Day of Defense, two Mormon missionaries show up in a small town.  Elder Burke (John Foss) is an experienced missionary who always tries to be positive.  Elder Davis (Allan Groves) is a younger, less experienced missionary who always seems to be in a bad mood and who spends a lot of time whining.  Burke and Davis do not have a particularly good working relationship.  One gets the feeling that Burke would rather work alone and that Davis would rather work in a big city.

However, it turns out that it really doesn’t matter whether or not David and Burke can get along because they’ve entered a town that is run by the Christian Town Council.  Made up of five other members of the clergy, the CTC runs the town and has passed a law that states that you have to get a license if you’re going to preach.  And they refuse to give issue a license to anyone who they consider to be non-Christian and that includes the Mormons.  Elder Burke and Elder Davis are tossed in jail.

Now, at this point, the path forward seems clear enough.  What the CTC is doing is clearly a violation of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  So, really, the Mormons should just take the CTC to court because there’s no way the law is going to survive a legal challenge.

Instead, Judge Nielson (Joan Peterson) decides that Burke and Davis should get a chance to make their case that Mormons are Christians before a jury of the town’s anti-Mormon citizenry.  She assigns the town’s one public defender, Thomas (Andrew Lenz), to argue in favor of the Mormons.  The town’s district attorney, James (Brooks Utley), and the head of the CTC, Rev. Williams (James Westwood), is assigned to make the case that Mormons are not Christian.  The jury will decide whether Burke and Davis can stay in the town.

Uhmm….yeah.  Basically, what we have here is the Mormon version of something like God’s Not Dead 2.  In that film, instead of just arguing that the law states that a teacher (Melissa Joan Hart) is not allowed to promote religion in a classroom, the evil prosecutor (Ray Wise) decides that the entire case needed to be about proving that God was dead.  In Day of Defense, instead of arguing that the CTC’s actions are a violation of the Constitution, the attorneys decide to prove once and for all whether or not Mormons are Christians.

The entire town shows up for the trial, heckling the Mormons.  As well, a group of rednecks get it into their heads that the Mormon missionaries are going to try to steal their girlfriends.  Thomas’s family demands to know why he’s defending the Mormons, despite being a Catholic.  I imagine it has something to do with the fact that he appears to be the only defense attorney in the town.  Rev. Williams and the other members of the CTC are all portrayed a mustache-twirling villains.  There’s nothing subtle about this film.

In the end, the main thing that sticks out about this film is just how unlikable every single character in the film turns out to be.  I mean, even the two Elders comes across as being jerks.  Where I live, we have a sizable Mormon community and it’s not uncommon to see Elders riding their bicycles around.  They’re always very polite and friendly and I always appreciate the fact that none of them smell like cigarette smoke.  They’re all quite a bit nicer than the two Elders at the center of this film.  Day of Defense was made to appeal to a Mormon audience but I think most Mormons would object to being portrayed as being so smug and angry.

There is a bit of tragedy towards the end of the film.  It feels a bit contrived as does the film’s ending.  In the end, this film wasn’t a victory for free speech as much as it was a defeat for good filmmaking.