Out of the Darkness

Low-budget, religious-themed drama, expanded from the short film "Redeeming Daniel", concerns obstinate, quick-tempered Eli, a young man returned home to his family after a stint in the service who immediately butts heads with his rancher father. Since he's also at odds with both his mother and his wife--who won't allow him to tuck their four-year old into bed anymore--Eli gets drunk and drives off into the mountains, where he has a religious epiphany following an accident in his truck. Writer-director Shawn Justice apparently had a need to make this film, and he does have a message of faith to get across if you wait him out, but he displays no visible talent handling his actors (his dialogue is negligible as well). As a grizzled, mellow fellow camping out in the woods with his dog, Graham Greene arrives an hour into the proceedings and manages to give the production a little polish, but lead actor Adam Elliott Davis is embarrassing standing in a leaf-storm howling up at the sky. A filmmaker with some cinematic savvy might have given us more sides to Eli instead of just this stubborn cuss who pushes everyone away, but Justice is too determined to point out the obvious--that giving ourselves to God strengthens us--and forgets that movies are meant to entertain as well as enlighten. *1/2 from ****