Persecuted (film)

Former US drug addict and lead evangelist John Luther ( James Remar ) opposes Senator Donald Harrison ( Bruce Davison ), who advocates the adoption of the Faith and Justice Act, which will guarantee equal treatment and recognition for all belief systems, preventing Christians from claiming the truth is only on their side. Harrison says the United States "is no longer a Christian country - indeed, it never was," but Luther continues to preach his conviction that "only the Word of God can bring peace." To destroy Luther’s authority and enforce the bill, Harrison supporters and presidential minions ( James Higgins ) kill a prostitute by unleashing a government campaign to persecute a priest. Luther runs and turns to his father Charles ( Fred Thompson ) for help. He announces the dominance of “a powerful political movement based on deceit,” and tries to contact his wife John ( Natalie Grant ), desperately clinging to her faith in her husband’s innocence and fighting off the harassment of pastor Ryan Morris ( Brad Stein ), a rival to Luther’s flock, delighted with tax breaks from the new bill. Luther, armed with a rosary and a gun, realizing that everything will end with violence, is forced to take matters into his own hands ^{[1] [2]} .

The film was shot in 2013 in Albuquerque , New Mexico. ^[3] After the filming, the premiere screenings of the film with the participation of some members of Congress took place in February at the congress of the organization National Religious Broadcasters in Nashville , Tennessee , and in March 2014 at a conference of conservative political action in Washington, DC ^{[4] [5]} . The film was released in wide distribution on May 9, 2014 ^[6] .

The painting “Chased” was called by critics one of the worst films of 2014 , and some even as “absolutely terrible” ^[8] . On the Rotten Tomatoes website , his rating was 2.5 out of 10 points (   ) based on 13 reviews ^[9] , and on the Metacritic website - 3.2 out of 10 (   ) based on 11 reviews with the conclusion "overwhelming hostility" ^[10] . Opponents of the right movement in the United States, the film was regarded as "a thriller about religious freedom in America, destroyed by the sinister forces of liberation, equality and religious pluralism", which became "another weapon in the arsenal of the right-wing media machine aimed at promoting the ideology that America was appointed by God to be Christian a country, and that the federal government, the forces of pluralism and “political correctness” are agents of tyranny, forcing Christians to submit to their will ” ^[11] .

Kyle Smith of the New York Post noted that “ the Lord’s ways are inscrutable , but the“ Persecuted ”obviously took the awkward, obvious path, straining the topic of the attack on Christianity through the languid thriller” ^[12] . Neil Genslinger of the New York Times said that “this terrible attempt to create a political thriller on religious law is not aimed at Christians in general, but at a certain breed of them who feel as if the rest of the world was engaged in a gigantic conspiracy against them interpretations of good and truth ” ^[13] . Justin Chang of Variety said that “four months after the image in the film“ God Has Not Died ”by American academia as a seething hotbed of liberal atheism, comes“ The Persecuted ”- a Christian-themed adventure thriller focused on exposing the insidious multi-confessional government agenda . A film about a straw man does not become more ridiculous than this stupid and heavy-handed drama about an uncompromising preacher, which is the goal of various unscrupulous politicians and corrupt religious leaders, all of whom work to erode the gospel for their evil profit ", but" never mind that dramatic bets feel ridiculously falsified, specific antagonists poorly defined, the entire film is created in an atmosphere of context-free paranoia. If there is a reason why the “Chased” is so unconvincing, it is because it is a work of feeling that does not imply that you have to convince your audience of anything, but “the main character, James Remar, a reliably thoughtful veteran of category B films, deserves better role than he got here. But, of course, the audience will not have an orgasm without shotguns with beads, squeezed in a bloody fist - images that manage to be both funny and terrifying, and readable, only as incitement to violence in the name of the Lord. At a time when the world offers us many examples of what religious persecution actually looks like, for a film that indulges in its particular brand of righteousness, it is not just ignorance or gross negligence; it is an act of despicable irresponsibility ” ^[1] .

Christy Lemyr On the site of the famous critic Roger Ebert, she noted that this film “definitely has a pro-Christian perspective and focus on conservative viewers,” but “the ideology that drives the film — the paranoid thriller — makes the plot a little elusive” ^[14] . Thomas Hackard from Slant Magazine compared this movie to the series House of Cards because of “imitation of his sinister soundtrack and a tendency to frame shots in the background of the city landscape,” but this film is “speculative fiction,” but “not quite being the work of propaganda. There is no attempt to convince us that the world is being damaged by people who have not accepted the gospel; he simply assumes that we agree with this idea. And because it is intended for such an audience, the film does not embellish the more hateful aspects of the Christian fundamentalist worldview, neatly shown when Luther's father divides Americans into two groups: those who accept the truth of Christianity, and those who believe in nothing. The latter, it seemed, could be put up with until they threatened the superiority of this Christian truth, and at that moment Luther went out with a gun and a rosary to fight for the supremacy of his convictions. And, in turn, many in the audience can begin to pray, but, in fact, all this is just speculative fiction. Because the film shows us an actual vision of how some people look at the world, and this is terrible and scary ” ^[15] . Politico 's Sarah Pozner noted that the film is “designed to capitalize on conservative demands, against a tyrannical government affecting their religious freedom,” teeming with “awkward symbolism” and “plot twists that vary from unexplained implausibility” ^[16] .

• "Chased . " Official site
• The “Persecuted” on the Internet Movie Database
• “Chased” on the Rotten Tomatoes website
• “Persecuted” on the Metacritic website
• Chased by Box Office Mojo