Persecuted | |
---|---|
Directed by | Daniel Lusko |
Written by | Daniel Lusko |
Produced by | Daniel Lusko James R. Higgins Gray Frederickson Jerry D. Simmons |
Starring | James Remar Bruce Davison Dean Stockwell Gretchen Carlson Raoul Trujillo Natalie Grant Brad Stine Fred Dalton Thompson |
Cinematography | Richard J. Vialet |
Edited by | Brian Brinkman |
Music by | Chris Ridenhour |
Production company | One Media |
Distributed by | Millennium Entertainment |
Release date |
|
Running time | 91 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1.6 million [1] |
Persecuted is a 2014 American Christian drama film written and directed by Daniel Lusko and starring James Remar, Bruce Davison, Dean Stockwell, Gretchen Carlson, Raoul Trujillo, Natalie Grant, Brad Stine, and Fred Thompson.
Reformed drug addict and America's leading evangelist John Luther opposes Senator Donald Harrison's Faith and Fairness Act, which would not allow Christians to state that they have the whole or only truth. To destroy Luther's credibility and to ensure passage of the bill, Harrison has Luther framed for the rape and murder of a teenaged girl.
Principal photography took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. [2] The movie was screened at the February 2014 National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and in March 2014 at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC [3]
Persecuted has been adapted into a book by Robin Parrish.
Persecuted was released theatrically on July 18, 2014.
The film was widely panned by critics and is one of the worst-reviewed films of 2014. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 0% approval rating with an average rating of 2.6/10 based on 14 reviews. [4] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 11 out of 100 based on nine reviews, indicating "overwhelming dislike". [5]
New York Times film critic Neil Genzlinger wrote, "This terrible attempt at a political thriller for the religious right is aimed not at Christians in general but at a certain breed of them, the kind who feel as if the rest of the world were engaged in a giant conspiracy against their interpretation of good and truth." [6]
Justin Chang of Variety concluded his scathing review with, "At a time when the world offers us no shortage of examples of what actual religious persecution looks like, for a film to indulge in this particular brand of self-righteous fearmongering isn’t just clueless or reckless; it’s an act of contemptible irresponsibility." [7]
Focus on the Family said, "Philosophically, the movie compels us to grapple with what it looks like to have religious freedom in our modern world. It asks, Do we still have it in America? And it goes to some length, story-wise, to reinforce how important such freedom is....Indeed, religious freedom is a very big deal. It is the bedrock upon which America was founded. And while the sort of vicious persecution Christians currently experience in some other countries is not a reality here in the United States, many American Christians already feel that their faith is under attack...[Persecuted] has its problems, both in terms of content and plot and even message. But its subject is a timely one, well worth putting much more thought into than most of us usually do." [8]
Richard Stuart Linklater is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993); the Before trilogy of romance films: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013); the music-themed comedy School of Rock (2003); the adult animated films Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022); the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014); the comedy film Everybody Wants Some!! (2016); and the romantic comedy Hit Man (2023).
Married to the Mob is a 1988 American crime romantic comedy film directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Barry Strugatz and Mark R. Burns, and starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, Dean Stockwell, Mercedes Ruehl, and Alec Baldwin. Pfeiffer plays Angela de Marco, a gangster's widow from Brooklyn, opposite Modine as the undercover FBI agent assigned the task of investigating her mafia connections.
Losin' It is a 1983 comedy film directed by Curtis Hanson, and starring Tom Cruise, Shelley Long, Jackie Earle Haley and John Stockwell. The film follows four teenagers trying to lose their virginity. It was filmed largely in Calexico, California.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 2005 American horror film directed by David Lee Fisher, who also co-wrote the film's screenplay, and is a remake of the 1920 silent film of the same name. It was released in the U.S. at the ScreamFest Film Festival on October 22, where it won three prizes: the Audience Choice Award, Best Cinematography and Best Special Effects.
Luther is a 2003 historical drama film dramatizing the life of Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther. It is directed by Eric Till and stars Joseph Fiennes in the title role. Alfred Molina, Jonathan Firth, Claire Cox, Bruno Ganz, and Sir Peter Ustinov co-star. The film covers Luther's life from his becoming a friar in 1505, to his trial before the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. The American-German co-production was partially funded by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a Christian financial services company.
Hubble is a 2010 American documentary film about Space Shuttle missions to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. It is narrated by the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
Luther is a British psychological crime thriller television series starring Idris Elba as DCI John Luther and Ruth Wilson as Alice Morgan, written by Neil Cross. The detective Luther must make cases against criminals while the murderer Morgan has a complicated relationship with him. The first series is composed of six episodes which ran in May and June 2010. A second series of four episodes aired on BBC One in June and July 2011, and a third was commissioned in 2012 composed of four episodes which aired in July 2013. A two-episode fourth series was broadcast in December 2015, and a fifth series of four episodes premiered on 1 January 2019. BBC Studios handled distribution for the TV series.
For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada, also known as Cristiada and as Outlaws, is a 2012 epic historical war drama film directed by Dean Wright and written by Michael Love, based on the events of the Cristero War. It stars Andy García, Eva Longoria, Oscar Isaac, Rubén Blades, Peter O'Toole, and Bruce Greenwood. The film is the directorial debut for Wright, a veteran visual effects supervisor on films including The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003), and was released on June 1, 2012 to poor reviews.
Last Ounce of Courage is a 2012 American Christian Christmas drama film directed by Darrel Campbell and Kevin McAfee and starring Marshall R. Teague, Jennifer O'Neill, and Fred Williamson. It centers on the struggle of Bob Revere, a man dealing with what he feels is his freedom of religion being attacked by the government of his community and an ACLU-like group.
True Story is a 2015 American mystery thriller film that was directed by Rupert Goold in his directorial debut. It is based on a screenplay by Goold and David Kajganich. Based on the memoir of the same name by Michael Finkel, it stars Jonah Hill, James Franco and Felicity Jones, with Gretchen Mol, Betty Gilpin and John Sharian in supporting roles.
Stranded is a 2013 science fiction-horror film directed and co-written by Roger Christian and Christian Piers Betley (writer/producer) starring Christian Slater, Brendan Fehr, Amy Matysio, and Michael Therriault. Astronauts who are stranded on a lunar mining base attempt to survive an attack by shapeshifting alien life forms. Filming was at the Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios by Regina, Saskatchewan based Minds Eye Entertainment. The film was one of the last financed by the province's cancelled film employment tax credit and was produced entirely in Saskatchewan.
Not Cool is a 2014 American romantic teen comedy film directed and edited by Shane Dawson, written by Dan Schoffer, and produced by Lauren Schnipper, Dawson, and Josh Shader. The film centers on a group of high school friends reuniting over their Thanksgiving break during college. Along with Hollidaysburg, it is one of two films that were produced for the Starz reality competition show The Chair, where the competitors use the same screenplay to create their own film. The film stars Cherami Leigh, Shane Dawson, Drew Monson, Michelle Veintimilla, Lisa Schwartz, and Bill Laing. The film grossed $36,026 in the US against an $800,000 budget and received negative reviews. As of 2023, it is Dawson's only directed feature film.
Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is a 2015 Canadian-American biographical film. It was written by Denne Bart Petitclerc, and directed by Bob Yari. The film is based on events from Ernest Hemingway's life in Havana, Cuba in the 1950s, and on a friendship that developed there between Hemingway and Petitclerc, who was then a young journalist. The film received generally unfavorable reviews.
Do You Believe? is a 2015 American Christian drama film directed by Jon Gunn and stars an ensemble cast featuring Ted McGinley, Mira Sorvino, Andrea Logan White, Lee Majors, Alexa PenaVega, Sean Astin, Madison Pettis, Cybill Shepherd, and Brian Bosworth. The film is distributed by Pure Flix, who released it on March 20, 2015.
Saints & Strangers is an American drama television two-part miniseries. It tells the story of the Mayflower voyage and chronicles the Pilgrims' first year in America and the first Thanksgiving in 1621. The program aired on the National Geographic Channel and premiered on November 22, 2015.
God's Not Dead 2 is a 2016 American Christian drama film, directed by Harold Cronk, and starring Melissa Joan Hart, Jesse Metcalfe, David A. R. White, Hayley Orrantia and Sadie Robertson. It is a sequel to God's Not Dead (2014), and the second installment in the titular film series. Aside from David A.R. White reprising his role as Reverend David Hill, Paul Kwo, Benjamin Onyango, and Tricha LaFache also reprise their roles as Martin Yip, Reverend Jude, and Amy Ryan respectively. It follows a high school teacher facing a court case that could end her career, after having answered a student's seemingly innocuous question about Jesus. The film presents an evangelical perspective on the separation of church and state.
Northern Borders is a 2013 American drama film written and directed by Jay Craven, and based on Howard Frank Mosher's novel of the same name. It stars Bruce Dern, Geneviève Bujold and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick.