Faith of Our Fathers

Before I viewed “Faith of our Fathers,” I thought it would be a heavy, serious movie. Instead, it turned out to be a classic road trip movie, wrought with mishaps along the way. There are many movies out that use the same idea—two complete opposites are forced to take a road trip together while their personalities clash, thus providing comic relief along the way as they get into various disasters.

John Paul (Kevin Downes) never met his father who died in Vietnam, and his mother never talked about it. When cleaning out his mother’s home, he comes across his father’s belongings and discovers the name of someone who served with his dad. Hoping to learn more, he attempts to contact him, only to finally find the man’s son who ends up hanging up on him. This leads him to leave his fiancé to make a trip (another classic road trip plot line, adding a wife, fiancé, impending birth or wedding) to find the only person who seems to know anything about his dad.

Wayne (David A.R. White) also lost his father to the Vietnam war. He was a boy when his dad left for war and grew up to be a harsh, bitter man. Latter John Paul shows up on his doorstep looking for information, Wayne eventually says they are going to the wall (the Vietnam Veterans Memorial) to see their fathers’ names. He bribes John Paul into going, by saying he can read the letters from Wayne’s father… for a price.

Along the way, the two men cannot find any common ground, other than their fathers serving and dying together. They argue constantly, meet some shady characters and even end up in jail. There are flashbacks throughout the film, so that it parallels the lives of John Paul and Wayne and that of their fathers in Vietnam.

I wasn’t expecting this movie to be at all comical, so it threw me that it was. It was a little disconcerting, at first, because I expected the movie to have a somber tone throughout. I was also expecting to love this movie, or at least to really like it. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it was funny; I thought it tried too hard and that many parts of the film were too staged, not at all natural. Some of the mishaps along the way were too contrived and the dialog felt recited. The scenes where they are driving were obviously done on a set.

Toward the end of the movie, it becomes emotional, as both men find answers to their questions about how their fathers lived and died. They learn what kind of men they were and how their own friendship grew when thrown together in war. I finally found myself feeling empathetic toward the characters. How their fathers’ deaths had affected their mothers’ lives and their own and their shared hurts and loss brought the film together.

In terms of any content that may have been objectionable, it is a stretch to find any. The only thing that I could possibly think that may bother some is when the men are driving and Wayne says “Just smack her, smack her” referring to John Paul’s fiancé, after John Paul talks to her on the phone. There is a fist fight and some gunfight during the war scenes. It spite of its PG-13 rating, it is far more tame than most PG movies.

The movie shows how faith in God brought courage and comfort in a time of fear. How we live our Christian lives can speak more than our words, and Stephen George (Sean McGowan), John Paul’s father, showed his faith in God and that had lasting effects even on generations to come. The movie closes with the verse “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13). This is a film about faith and friendship. If you wish to see a Christian film, this is a decent one. It isn’t one of my top choices, as the aforementioned aspects detract from the production quality, but if you wish to support Christian films or prefer a film that is not offensive, this will do.

Violence: Moderate / Profanity: None / Sex/Nudity: None

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