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Fireproof Our rating: Your rating:   MPAA rating: PG (for thematic material and some peril) Genre: Drama Theater release: September 26, 2008 by Samuel Goldwyn Films Directed by: Alex Kendrick Runtime: 1 hour 58 minutes Cast: Kirk Cameron (Caleb Holt), Erin Bethea (Catherine Holt), Ken Bevel (Michael Simmons), Harris Malcom (John Holt), Phyllis Malcom (Cheryl Holt), Blake Bailey (Stephanie Mills), Walter Burnett (Dr. Anderson), Bill Stafford (Mr. Rudolph)•• Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Two years ago, there was a big controversy when Facing the Giants, an ultra-low-budget movie produced by a church in the Bible Belt, was rated PG, allegedly for its spiritual content. Pundits and politicians railed against the MPAA and its ratings board for its perceived bias against religious themes, and moviegoers rallied to the film's defense at the box office, making it one of the most successful Christian movies of all time. But as the debate over the movie's rating subsided, another controversy emerged. Some Christians praised the film for its positive, family-friendly values, while others condemned it as bad art, a bad story badly told that would only encourage the worst artistic instincts of the evangelicals who saw it.

Kirk Cameron as Caleb Holt

Personally, I came down somewhere in the middle of that debate. Yes, the script, by director Alex Kendrick and his brother Stephen—both of whom are pastors at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia—had a tendency to pile on the happy endings, to make rededicating one's life to Jesus look like the magic trick that would solve all of life's problems. But I have acted in church drama groups, and in at least one video sponsored by my denomination at that time, and I have a sense of how hard it can be to get even mediocre work out of a mostly-volunteer, non-professional cast and crew. Seen in that context, the Kendricks' film was remarkably impressive, and instead of slamming it, I wanted to encourage their artistic growth.

Thankfully, their newest film, Fireproof, is indeed a step up, though it presents new challenges that the Kendricks' earlier films never quite had to deal with. The story this time concerns a firefighter named Caleb Holt (Kirk Cameron) whose wife of seven years, Catherine (Erin Bethea), wants a divorce. Caleb is ready to give up on the marriage altogether, but his father, John (Harris Malcom), gives him a book called The Love Dare and challenges him to follow its steps before throwing in the towel. Since Fireproof has been endorsed by a plethora of marriage ministries, you can pretty much guess how things will turn out. But the Kendricks earn their resolution this time; instead of dropping miracles and messages from God on their characters, they keep the story focused on the Holts and driven by the choices that the Holts make. Put simply, it no longer feels like the filmmakers are "cheating."

Things get ugly between Caleb and Catherine (Erin Bethea)

Which is not to say that the script is free of problems. The first half-hour or so feels uneven, like the filmmakers were trying to find the right tone, or weren't quite sure how to set up the story. The first time we see Catherine, a hospital administrator, she's talking to some nurses and she begins every other sentence with "Hey" as if to itemize the various plot points she's laying out. When Catherine has a brief exchange with a doctor who seems a little too interested in what she has to say, the nurses cast each other knowing looks. And just in case we missed the point, as soon as Catherine is out of earshot, one of the nurses tells the others, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say the doctor has a thing for Cat." Subtle, this scene isn't.

Then there are the arguments that Caleb and Catherine have at home. These scenes are necessary, of course, because without them, we don't understand why their marriage is on the verge of collapse, or what hurdles Caleb will have to overcome in order to win his wife's love back. But when Caleb finally blows up at Catherine—his explosive anger being the thing that finally pushes her to seek a divorce—the outburst is completely out of proportion to what has come before. Yes, arguments have a way of escalating, but nothing we see of Caleb before or after that scene seems to suggest he has that sort of rage coiled up inside him. Instead of seeing a character, we see an actor playing one scene differently from all the others.

Catherine commiserates with her friends

Once the set-up is out of the way, however, the film settles into a nice mix of moral lessons and crowd-pleasing comic relief, sometimes in the very same scene. The Kendricks are not above poking fun at the Dr. Phil-isms that come up in the dialogue every now and then, and they get some amusing mileage out of the various scenes in which Caleb and Catherine commiserate with their respective buddies. In one amusing running gag, Caleb repeatedly, and embarrassingly, vents his frustrations outside the house where his neighbor can see him. And, on a more trivial level, the film lightens things up once in a while by showing what life is like at the firehouse, where the firefighters taunt and tease each other like college dorm-mates.

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