Choosing Matthias

"Choosing Matthias" is possibly the most cliché-ridden movie ever made, featuring a groan worthy, over-the-top performance by Caia Coley. Ms. Coley's directing is just as bad as her acting; she takes on both duties in this production, and fails at each.

Charlie and Maggie are a married couple touched by tragedy when their young son is kidnapped and killed in the big city. The requisite marital problems, rage, and god-questioning ensue, and the following ninety-odd minutes take us from one canned scene to the next. The ending is as maudlin as it is predictable, complete with an almost-literal cliff-hanger "climax".

Predictability is always a problem with movies like this one, but "Choosing Matthias" makes it all too easy for us to guess where things are going, even when much-needed exposition is missing from the first half of the movie. Every stock character makes an appearance: the wise-cracking delivery guy; the empathetic friends; the kindly old man; the concerned social worker with the permanently furrowed brow; the all-merciful deity.

It suffers not merely from atrocious acting, eye-rolling dialog, and a stale Christian "trials of Job" undercurrent, but from amateurish technical issues. There's a weird sound problem in a couple of scenes that makes some off-camera characters sound like they're talking into an empty Kleenex box. To extend the drama of several scenes, or perhaps due to a lazy (or broke) director who chose not to re-shoot, the frame rate is noticeably slowed, sometimes immediately before dialog.

Wow, this is one bad movie.