What if... is essentially an overtly Christen re-make of the 2000 Nicolas Cage movie The Family Man. In fact I'd say this movie is so like The Family Man that there may be legitimate grounds for a lawsuit. Directed by Dallas Jenkins, the son of Left Behind series co-author Jerry B. Jenkins, the film stars Kevin Sorbo (who seems to have replaced Kirk Cameron as the preferred leading man of Evangelical nitch market films) as Ben Walker, a man who in his twenties turned his back on a calling from God to preach to enter the cutthroat world of business. Fifteen years after making this life altering decision which broke his college girlfriends heart, Ben has just been promoted to a partner in his firm and become engaged to a shallow but superficially beautiful woman, when he receives an invite from his old love to a fundraiser at their former church. Ben decides he is going to skip out on this event but God has other plans for him, in a road to Damascus moment (which takes place on an actual road) he sends an angel in the form of John Ratzenberger to transport him to an alternate timeline where Ben heeded God's call, became a preacher (and divinity school graduate) married his sweetheart (Kristy Swanson), produced two daughters (including Disney Channel star Debby Ryan) and has just taken over as pastor at his finically struggling old church.
In predictable fashion Ben is at first flummoxed and disbelieving, then tries unsuccessfully to run back to his old life and job, where of course no one remembers him, before deciding to try and go with the flow, embrace his new life, learn the folly of his ways and what really matters, before (spoiler) being returned to his old worldly life to see if he has really become a changed man, which (spoiler) of course he has. I've been listing to a podcast recently called God Awful Movies in which a group of atheist comedians watch Christen movies and then proceed to riff on them, I decided to see this movie because I wanted to see one of the movies they were going to be talking about before listing to the episode and this one sounded amongst the most fun (I'm looking forward to listing to the episode soon). For a 'Christian' movie you can do a lot worse then this, I actually must confess I enjoyed it. I don't think kitsch is the precise word for this but there is something about watching a film that just takes for granted a world view and assumptions so different from what you encounter in most movie that is just kind of fascinating. It's a glimpse into a subculture that is all around us but into which I seldom venture, I mean I don't even eat at Chick-fil-a. I'm actually thinking of watching a number of Christian films in the near future just for a change of pace, and because it will be kind of fun writing about them. So I'm going to go ahead and give What If... **1/2
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