There’s a moment in the movie Courageous when one of the characters stands alone while around him others gather in small family groups. He has, in his past, perpetrated the ultimate failure as a father. He had fathered a child with a girlfriend, and urged her to abort. His aloneness in the one brief scene sheds a poignant light on the loneliness of loss - loss of a child, loss of an opportunity to accept responsibility.

Courageous, from brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick, is not primarily about abortion but about men taking responsibility. It’s the story of five men in Georgia, four deputy sheriffs combating drug gangs and a Hispanic working man combating unemployment. The pressures they face differ but each demands courage: policeman and working man as everyday hero.

The movie opens with a burst of action that can leave the audience gasping, and hints at a menace that is likely to return. It’s not gratuitous violence but poses a question of a dilemma of how much risk a man is justified in taking. For men in general, and young men in particular, “manliness” is defined by people such as the police and, as in the Kendricks’ Fireproof, firefighters whose day-to-day job is to take risks to save other people from having to do so.

The character who urged his girlfriend to abort placed all the risk on her. This drama set in the world of the police emphasizes that real mature manliness comes from the courage and moral fortitude to take risks in order to protect or serve others. The everyday job of being a father entails risks as he guides his children to adulthood, not the least of which is the chance of alienation of rebellious off-spring. Anyone who has tried to be a good father will recognize the experiences of fathers in this movie.

The movie is unabashedly Christian, courageously so in a movie industry that is anything but. If some would quibble at that, they can’t argue against facts stated explicitly in the dialog: prisons are full of people whose fathers failed them; gangs are the only family some young men find; young people who grow up fatherless are at high risk for drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, suicide, drop-out from school, and teen pregnancy. It also shows it’s possible for a fatherless young man can escape the gang world, given the help of a surrogate father figure.

Much more common is the inattentive father overloaded with work, and the consequences of this are part of the story too.

Each of the five men represents different experiences and degrees of commitment to fatherhood. All share a common resolve to improve.

“Honour begins at home” reads the tag line to the title of the movie. Sub-plots emphasize this, as three of the characters run headlong into moral dilemmas and are either inspired by a new sense of integrity, or fail to live up to it.

To take responsibility is not easy, this movie says. It takes courage, and the support of men who believe the same.

 Distrbutor

The movie is the fourth release from Sherwood Pictures, which is a ministry of the Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, and is distributed in Canada by Tricord Media, a division of Crossroads Christian Communications, Burlington, owners of CTS TV, with the aid of 20 other Christian organizations. U.S. distributor is Affirm Films, a division of Sony. Box-office success in Canada Other releases have been Fireproof, which focuses on marriage, Flywheel about Christian life in business, and Facing the Giants about faith in the world of competitive sports.

To see the movie website, click here.

To see the movie, go to Silver City in Burlington or Stoney Creek where it opens September 30.