Kevan Otto | Through the Shattered Lens

Wait, what’s this?

A sincere and heartfelt faith-based film that works largely due to a sensitive and likable performance from Joey Lawrence?

Well, stranger things have happened.

2022’s Pardoned By Grace tells the story of Scott Highberger (portrayed by Joey Lawrence). Scott is a screw-up. From the first time we see him until roughly until about an hour into this film, Scott is always doing something wrong. He starts out the film as a small town drug addict and dealer and, throughout the course of Pardoned By Grace, he is consistently tempted to retuning to that lifestyle. He’s someone who has spent his entire life being told that he’s never going to amount to anything and that he’s destined to be a failure so it kind of makes sense that he wouldn’t be worried too much about following the laws of conventional society.

The film follows Scott as he goes in and out of prison. The warden, the guards, and even the other prisoners all know that Scott is capable of being more than just a convict but Scott himself cannot find the faith to keep from getting into trouble. Whenever he’s released, he messes up and he’s sent back to jail. At one point, he even gets a good job and he starts making a lot of money and that’s all it takes for him to start using cocaine again.

Finally, after having alienated every member of his family and committed one too many crimes, Scott finds himself in a church, where he listens to a sermon from Pastor Dave (Michael W. Smith). Dave instinctively hires Scott to handle odd jobs at the church. While Scott cleans up the place and stacks chair and tries to live an honest life, Dave makes plans for his prison ministry. Scott is excited when he’s invited to take part in the ministry but then he learns that he won’t be allowed to enter any prisons to preach because he still has a years-old warrant out for his arrest. Scott heads to Florida, where he turns himself into the police, even though he knows that, as a repeat offender, he is looking at a potential life sentence as a result.

Pardoned by Grace works surprisingly well. Joey Lawrence is not exactly the first person who comes to mind when you think of an actor with tremendous dramatic range but he is still likable and earnest as Scott, a man who is determined to atone for his past mistakes and to take responsibility for his actions, even if it means losing his freedom. If anything, Lawrence’s limited range actually makes him a good pick for Scott, who is initially portrayed as being someone who does whatever he feels has to be done in the moment with very little consideration given to what his actions could mean in the future. As well, one doesn’t have to be religious to appreciate the film’s portrait of a justice system that is so obsessed with punishment that it’s forgotten that one of the purposes of prison is rehabilitation. Scott is not someone who wants to be a criminal but it’s not prison that helps him to move on from his old ways. Instead, it’s the faith of someone who is willing to give him a second chance.

Pardoned by Grace was surprisingly good.

The 2013 film, Online, opens with a bunch of male co-workers going out for pizza. They’re celebrating the promotion of John Wild (Morgan Ayers), who has gone from being a preacher’s kid to being the youngest executive at their company. Before they dig into the pizza, one of the older men says a quick blessing over it….

Yes, it’s one of those films!

John has a well-paying job, a big house, and a beautiful and supportive wife named Mary (Kelsey Sanders). For most people, that would probably be enough to be happy for at least a few years but not for John! John finds himself thinking about his high school girlfriend, Adrianna (Esseri Holmes). John was in love with Adrianna, or at least he thought he was. But then, one day, she told him that her father’s company was forcing them to relocate to France. Both John and Adrianna were heart-broken.

(My family moved around a lot when I was growing up. Whenever my Dad got a new job, we moved to a new town and often a new state. Personally, I would happily trade that month in Tulsa for a few years in France.)

Despite the fact that he’s happily married and he knows that he shouldn’t, John decides to look Adrianna up online. He uses a site called SocialFriends.com because everyone knows better than to run the risk of getting sued by Facebook. (My favorite Facebook’s substitute was Degrassi‘s Facerange.) It turns out that Adrianna has not only returned to America but she also lives nearby!

Unfortunately, Adrianna is married now. Even more unfortunately, her husband is a French cosmetics heir named Pierre (Byron Herlong). Pierre spends all of his time complaining about Americans being materialistic and arrogant. Adrianna replies that, if it wasn’t for those “arrogant Americans,” he would “be speaking German right now.” Boom! You tell him, girl! Pierre doesn’t have a snarky reply for that!

John reaches out to Adrianna. They have dinner at a fancy restaurant. They talk. They catch up on old times. They eventually share one kiss. Of course, John doesn’t bother to tell his wife about any of this and instead, he just tells a lot of lies about having to work late. However, Mary’s not dumb. She knows that there is something her husband isn’t telling her, especially after the credit card bill comes in and she discovers how much he’s been spending on dinner. Mary’s mother, who has never gotten over being cheated on by her own husband, hires a private detective to follow John around.

John’s mistake, one of his co-workers explains, wasn’t just that he reached out to Adrianna and then lied to his wife about it. John’s mistake is that he allowed himself to dine alone with another woman to begin with!

Online is one of those low-budget indie films that really makes you appreciate directors and editors who know how to keep the action moving at a steady pace because the film was filled with so many slow spots that it was next to impossible for me to really focus on it. My mind kept wandering as I watched the film. I also got a bit annoyed that, while John was given a chance at redemption, Adrianna was not. If John was portrayed as being someone who, in the midst of a mid-like crisis, made a mistake than Adrianna was essentially portrayed as just being a brazen homewrecker. That said, the film did feature Pierre being put in his place and I appreciated that. Arrogant Americans for the win!