Watch “Machine Gun Preacher” Movie
When ex-biker-gang member Sam Childers makes the life-changing decision to go to East Africa to help repair homes destroyed by civil war, he is outraged by the unspeakable horrors faced by the region’s vulnerable populace, especially the children. Ignoring the warnings of more more »experienced aide workers, Sam breaks ground for an orphanage where it’s most needed-in the middle of territory controlled by the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, a renegade militia that forces youngsters to become soldiers before they even reach their teens. Determined to save as many as possible, he leads armed missions deep into enemy territory to retrieve kidnapped children, restoring peace to their lives-and eventually his own.
Remarkably, it’s not even the thorny race issues that trip up Machine Gun Preacher; it’s Forster’s and screenwriter Jason Keller’s inability to make this feel like anything other than a beat-by-beat recreation of a story that might be better told by Childers himself up at a pulpit.