Plot Summary
Travis Freeman is a popular and upstanding high school football player who everyone in the small town of Corbin looks up to. However, when tragedy strikes him and leaves him suddenly blind, he loses his purpose in life and retreats into seclusion. He gives up on life and his parents are a loss as to what to do until his mobility coach breaks through his protective walls and lights a fire under him to get back up and find his new purpose in life. With the high school football team struggling to find identity and success, the coach decides to put in Travis as center in the hopes that the whole team will rally around him and save their season.
Production Quality (2.5 points)
23 Blast has a respectable production with only small errors. Video quality is professional and camera work is great, especially in the sports action scenes. Audio quality is fine, even if the soundtrack is a bit pedestrian. Sets, locations, and props are realistic and authentic. There is little negative to point out here except for some slightly poor editing that allows confusing leaps in time to hurt this film. But otherwise, this is a professional effort that we don’t see enough of in Christian film.
Plot and Storyline Quality (1 point)
Though 23 Blast presents an interesting story that contains honest characters, it commits a huge error by crafting a very rapid progression of events that keeps this plot from being all that it could be. Massive time jumps leave too many unanswered questions and stunt characters and plot development. There are too many vague ideas that are not well explained and there are typical sports montages, along with other predictable sports elements. There are some moments of dry comedy, but we would really have liked to get to know these characters better through deeper dialogue and more personality-forming circumstances. It’s a shame this plot could have been better because it’s a good story. Even so, it’s probably still worth a watch.
Acting Quality (2 points)
Though this cast is only semi-professional, they post some good performances. Blind acting is difficult, yet one of the cast members pulls this off well. Though sometimes lines are mumbled, emotions are mostly believable. This is another respectable effort.
Conclusion
23 Blast is an enjoyable sports film that many audiences will find interesting and fun to watch. Though there are some plot issues, the production and the acting are good enough to make this film fine on the surface. It’s always frustrating to see a story that does not reach its full potential, but this movie shows that this creative team can do greater things in the future, so we can’t wait to see what they have planned next.
Final Rating: 5.5 out of 10 points
Box Office Revolution 