Plot Summary
Julie Thompson never dreamed that she would be raped by a stranger, but she and her family were relieved when justice was served. However, the story didn’t end since Julie soon discovered that she was pregnant with her rapist’s child. Although her family urges to cover up the shame with an abortion, Julie refuses and even takes steps to forgive her perpetrator. This take her and her new child on a journey they never saw coming, but they grow closer to God in the process.
Production Quality (.5 point)
After the long opening credits of this film, the production proceeds in very low-quality fashion, including a loud and invasive soundtrack that rarely takes a break and unacceptably sub-par audio quality. The lighting in most scenes is almost weird, and camera work is quite bad as evidenced by its shakiness and its too-close shots. While video quality is passable, this is the only remotely positive element of this production. Sets, locations, and props are quite cheap, and there is an overuse of cheesy special effects, wild flashes, and black\white\sepia tones. Some scenes come off as downright blurry, and many of them are abruptly cut off and poorly transitioned between. In the end, this is a basement-level production.
Plot and Storyline Quality (.5 point)
Even though Loving the Bad Man seemed to begin with an interesting and different idea, the execution is horrible, and some of the messaging seems questionable. For one, many of the Christian characters are unrealistically perfect while many of the non-Christian characters are strawmen who spout childish persecution dialogue. Flashbacks are present in the film, but they are poorly used; additionally, crazy time jumps and dizzying montages hamper any hope of a normal plot. Many importance scenes are glossed over with musical bridges, which hurts any opportunity for substantial conversations that would actually develop characters. As a side note, the portrayal of prison life is fairly realistic, and there is a good message in the end if the viewer makes it past the odd undertones at the beginning of the story.
Acting Quality (.5 point)
If other parts of the film aren’t bad, the acting is enough to send things over the edge. The cast members of this movie exhibit annoyingly extreme emotions and very forced line delivery. Clearly, no coaching is present as many scenes feature people talking over each other and trying way to hard as they yell and scream their lines. Nevertheless, there is ever-so-slight improvement in the last third of the film, and it goes without saying that this is one of Stephen Baldwin’s better roles to date (other than The Genius Club). In summary, however, this isn’t enough to save the movie from itself.
Conclusion
In the future, it may be a good idea to remake this concept with some professional consultation from real rape victims since this story deals with a highly sensitive topic that can be easily mishandled by inexperienced writers. It’s commendable to try different things, but when the delivery is this bad, the creators should really consider pushing pause on the production process. Just because an idea has been given doesn’t mean that it’s time for it to be made…sometimes, waiting is in order. Time can give you opportunities to grow as a creator, to amass better resources and contacts, and to see what God’s plan for your concept is.
Final Rating: 1.5 out of 10 points
Box Office Revolution 