The Machine Gun Preacher

Friday nights are video nights.
The night we eat pop corn and drink fizzy drinks.
The night we all chill together.
No work, no marking, no revision.
We took a break from working through the golden oldies this Friday and went to Blockbusters to see what there was on offer.
After a discussion with my friend at the till on the merits of Nicolas Cage and the fact that he hit his pinnacle with 'Face off' a classic, but not in the same classic league as Quentin Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction", he suggested a film I may like, 'Machine Gun Preacher'. I looked at the cover and was not impressed (don't judge a book by it's cover, Fiona)

However, after a somewhat brutal start (My 14 year old decided to go to bed at this point) we were gripped.

Yes, it is brutal in places. But there again it is true. This isn't the glorification of grimness for the sake of it. My husband once taught two boys who had hid up a tree and witnessed their father being macheted to death. It happens. I taught a little boy, long ago who had witnessed the horrors in Sarajevo, every time he drew a picture of himself, he had a machine gun in his hand. Just because we do not live with this constant fear, does not mean others don't.

My daughter has spent two summers working in an orphange in Kampala, she too has witnessed children whose lives are ruled by fear and uncertainty.

The film isn't easy watching. But it is a facinating insight that shows how one man's near self destruction, sudden conversion and then mission can really change peoples lives.

His methods are criticised.

He kills people to save children.

I am not about to embark on the politics of all of this.

Suffice to say, the real Sam ends the film by poiently saying "if your children were kidnapped tonight and you knew the horrors they would endure, but I said I could save them, would you tell me not to shoot someone?".

He has a point. I do not know, faced with that situation what I would do, but I hazard a guess I might feel the means justify the end.