Movie and DVD Guide

Find Movies and Tickets

Choose Your Movie

All movies
or
Machine Gun Preacher (2011) The title, Machine Gun Preacher , makes it sound like a piece of grindhouse kitsch — and by the time it's over, you'll be thinking,… R PT123M Gerard Butler Michelle Monaghan Relativity Media
Movie Review

Machine Gun Preacher (2011)

MPAA Rating: R
Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman | Sep 30, 2011

Find theaters showing Machine Gun Preacher in your area

Gerard Butler | EX-CON Gerard Butler in Machine Gun Preacher
Image credit: Ilze Kitshoff
EX-CON Gerard Butler in Machine Gun Preacher
EW's GRADE
D

Details Release Date: Nov 18, 2011; Rated: R; Length: 123 Minutes; With: Gerard Butler and Michelle Monaghan; Distributor: Relativity Media

The title, Machine Gun Preacher, makes it sound like a piece of grindhouse kitsch — and by the time it's over, you'll be thinking, ''If only!'' Gerard Butler, who wears the same blank-wall expression whenever he's not throwing a fit of teeth-gnashing rage, plays the real-life Sam Childers, a druggie hooligan who found Jesus and went to the war-torn hell of Sudan to help save the lives of abused, maimed, often conscripted children. Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) directs with a gruelingly earnest, plodding sincerity, except that the film never gets beyond pulp psychology. It's like Machete remade as an awards-bait snoozer. D

Originally posted Sep 30, 2011 Published in issue #1174 Sep 30, 2011 Order article reprints