Jason Campbell | Through the Shattered Lens

2022’s Forgiving God opens with a seance.

Jon Moore (Matthew Utley) and his foster sister are fooling around with a Ouija board. Jon wants to contact the spirit of his little brother, Tommy (Jacob Pitoniak). Jon blames himself for his brother’s death and many of his subsequent problems can be linked back to the day that Tommy was killed in a mass shooting. The Ouija board seems to have a mind of its own, with the little pointer tool moving even when Jon takes his fingers off of it. Tommy’s face appear in a candle’s flame, blain Jon for his death and encouraging Jon to take his own life. Jon freaks out. Jon’s foster sister asks him if he’s stoned but otherwise, doesn’t seem to be too concerned about Jon’s suicidal tendences.

Jon’s subsequent attempt at suicide fails but it does lead to a both a huge fire and Jon getting sent to yet another foster family. Feeling lost and alienated and struggling to fit in with his religious community, Jon soon starts spending all of his time in the woods. Eventually, he meets a Native American girl named Isaka (Alexandra Sertik). At first, Jon fears that Isaka might be another demon sent to destroy him. Pastor Mark (Dean Cain) puts his mind at ease.

Jon is soon convinced that he’s in love with Isaka. He tells everyone about his new girlfriend and no one believes him. (That said, they’re rather tolerant of someone who claims to be spending all of his time with someone who they say doesn’t exist.) Jon starts to wonder why he never sees Isaka outside of the woods. Why has he never met Isaka’s parents? Why is Isaka always wearing the same clothes? Why does every picture that he takes of Isaka fail to develop? You can probably guess why. Isaka has a tragic story of her own and a lesson to teach Jon.

Forgiving God is a faith-based film that has a lot in common with the horror genre, from the Ouija-dominated opening to Jon’s fear that Isaka might be an otherworldly being sent to lead him astray. It’s actually a fairly intriguing story and, compared to most faith-based films, it’s actually told pretty well. Yes, there’s a few moments of awkward humor (faith-based films always seem to have at least one scene of awkward adult-teen dialogue) and some of the performance feel more professional than others. (Dean Cain, it must be said, classes up the joint in his small role.) There’s a sequence set at “bible camp,” which really made me happy that, when I was growing up, my family never stayed long enough in one place for anyone to suggest that my sisters and I should go to camp. That said, the cinematography is impressive, Matthew Utley gives a good performance as Jon, and there’s a fairly effective scene involving a grizzly bear. As far as indie religious films go, Forgiving God isn’t that bad at all. If anything, it continues Pennsylvania’s tradition of giving us independent cinema. George Romero gave us zombies. This film gives us bears and mysterious forest girls.

In 2022’s One Cop’s Journey, Keith Knotek (Tim Perez-Ross) is involved in a traffic accident. Because Keith is clearly intoxicated, he’s taken to jail. Because it’s the start of the weekend, Keith is going to have to spend three days in jail before the Magistrate will see him and determine the amount of money that it will take to get him out.

Keith sits in a jail cell for three days. Because he’s a cop, the other police officers treat him with perhaps a bit more sympathy than they would give the usual inmate. You need a private cell? Here you go. You want us to call your wife? No problem! You want to get changed for court in the officer’s locker room? Sure, why not? Here’s a phone, go ahead and call your minister.

That minister is played by Dean Cain. The cop calls the minister and admits to getting a DUI and maybe hurting some people in the car accident.

“We all make mistakes,” Dean Cain replies.

And isn’t that the truth! One Cop’s Journey attempts to show the stress that would lead a cop to start drinking. His partner and best friend is gunned down while pursuing a suspect. Keith, himself, is nearly killed while conducting a routine traffic stop. No one wants to hear the details of what a cop has to deal with on daily basis. His wife has grown tired of him being depressed and emotionally withdrawn all the time and, when she discovers that he never told her about one traumatic incident that happened shortly before they were married, she considers it to be the same as telling her a lie. Worst of all, his teenage daughter decides to attend an anti-police rally, holding a sign that reads “No Justice No Peace,” while her friends all hold signs that read, “Defund the Police.”

Since this is a faith-based film, Keith eventually finds redemption and hope through prayer and he goes on to write a book about the pressures of being a cop. That’s to be expected and, to its credit, the film doesn’t get particularly preachy when it comes to the religious angle. I imagine that most people who would regularly get offended by the religious subtext will be too busy getting upset over the film’s political subtext to really notice.

One Cop’s Journey is thoroughly and unapologetically pro-cop and that’s never more obvious than in the protest scene when the blue collar, salt-of-the-earth policemen find themselves being yelled at by a bunch of bitter geriatrics and a few smirking college students. There’s nothing subtle about it but, then again, there’s nothing subtle about most left-wing movies either. As is so often the case when it comes to political movies, how you react will depend on how you felt about the issue before the movie started. (My own personal opinion is that police reform is something that needs to be considered, especially when it comes to the militarization of the police. At the same time, the “abolish the police” folks were and are living in a fantasy world.)

One Cop’s Journey is only 63 minutes long and there is an effective dream sequence in which Keith finds himself looking at the headshots of everyone who he feels he has left down. That said, the film still had far too many slow spots for so short of a production. Putting Keith in the jail cell really did make the whole thing feel pretty stagey. Still, the film did find the time to share some information about Post Traumatic Stress amongst first responders. It’s heart was in the right place.