Plot Summary
Daniel is a devoted Christian whose marriage is struggling because his wife refuses to embrace the faith he has. They are also struggling financially as Daniel does not make enough money to pay their mortgage and his wife’s real estate sales are down. His wife insists that Daniel sell the large lot he inherited from his father, but Daniel promised his father that he wouldn’t sell it until the right time, even though they need the money to pay their mortgage. When his wife cheats on him, Daniel does the only natural thing anyone would do—set out to build a huge cross on the lot he owns. What could go wrong?
Production Quality (0 points)
As an underfunded church film, Daniel’s Lot has a lot of production errors. It is overall cheap-looking and includes blurry video quality, weird camera angles, and lots of shaky camera work. The soundtrack is very silly and often too loud, as are many outside sounds. Lighting is very inconsistent and is poor a lot of the time, especially in the very bright outside scenes. Sets and locations are very limited to inside people’s houses and offices and have an overall cheap feel to them. Finally, editing is totally out the window. This type of production begs the question, was it really worth making?
Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)
The ‘plot’ of this movie also raises questions of necessity and purpose. Besides the cheesy and childish portrayals of Christians and non-Christians that suggest Christians are perfect and non-Christians are all obnoxious, this story is utterly pointless and juvenile. Why can’t Daniel sell the lot to take care of his family and keep them from being evicted? There’s a difference between waiting on God and plain stupidity and lack of common sense. In addition to all of this, constant heavy-handed TV preaching litters the storyline. Some of the ways people are portrayed are downright embarrassing, and it goes without saying that the character development is horrible. To add insult to injury, a ridiculous religious freedom subplot is shoved into this so-called story. In short, we have no clue what is trying to be accomplished here, but whatever it is, it’s certainly not anything worthwhile.
Acting Quality (0 points)
Amateur church casts are very difficult to hone properly, and this problem is only made worse by the very unusual casting job done here. Some cast members act like literal children and are over-the-top obnoxious. Also, makeup is done very poorly. Unfortunately, this rounds out a very poor job all around.
Conclusion
When making a movie, a church should really look into getting some unbiased feedback of their work. Films like this are only giggle-inducing or just plain eye-rollers, so there’s no way they’re ever going to have a real impact. Any good intentions or messages that were attempted to be conveyed here are totally lost when the overall quality is so poor. Besides improved production and acting, we need stories we can actually relate to and characters we can care about, not silly nonsense like this.
Final Rating: 0 out of 10 points
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