User reviews

"A criminal threatens to destroy Washington, D.C. with a nuclear bomb unless seven people with 200+ IQs can solve all the world's problems in one night." How's that for the premise of a Christian film? It sure beats "A pop star struggles with her faith," or "A man must convince his brother-in-law of the importance of Christ in the Christmas season." A lot of people, including many Christians, dislike Christian films because:

1. They tend to be lower-budget and lower-quality, cinematically speaking, then most other films.

2. In an attempt to be "family friendly" and "wholesome," they often avoid or trivialize serious issues.

While "The Genius Club" can't overcome the first criticism, it seems as if the filmmakers recognized the second criticism, and decided to make a film that does nothing but address serious issues. Welcome to a Christian film that is not family-friendly. I can't think of a single other Christian film where characters make statements like, "Cancer hasn't been cured because that would mean the loss of millions of jobs in a booming health care industry."

"Solving the world's problems" takes the form of a debate between the seven genius characters and the villain. As time goes on, the stakes get higher, and they go from talking about things like politics and war to things like good and evil. As long as the debate is going on, which is most of the film, the dialogue is pretty well-thought-out and covers deep ground (it slacks off during the breaks, though). You might expect a character to make a statement implying that all the world's problems would be solved if everyone became Christians, but that does not happen. Instead, the film's thesis seems to be that we need to let of greed, let go of hate, and love one another. One of the seven is a seminary student and another is an atheist, and there is some debate about God, Jesus, and religion, but it is not antagonistic like in, say, "God's Not Dead," since the seven characters are seen as working together against a common adversary. Actually, the villain here is a more reasonable and rational character than the professor in "God's Not Dead."

Overall, I enjoyed "The Genius Club" as much as I enjoy movies that I would normally give an "8," but I have to give it a "7" instead, since some of the dialogue and acting was very unconvincing, especially towards the very beginning and the very end. Even so, I consider it one of the better Christian films I have seen, as it has meatier and more mature content than most others. I recommend it to people who are open- minded about Christianity and, for that matter, budgets.

This has to have been the most poorly acted, poorly constructed movies I have seen in my life, HOWEVER.. I was so absorbed by how bad this movie was, that I've now just watched it a second time for laughs. The script is atrocious, basically written for children ( even that's insulting this latest generation), or people who have never seen a movie before.

I did enjoy the questions, although they weren't radical or revolutionary, and for the uninitiated, I'm glad you've had the chance to have been asked these *new* questions.

If you find the questions new and interesting, you should start taking a closer look into politics, and world events.

There are no spoilers in here, except for those who were expecting a good film. But if you are intelligent, and like a drink or two with your mates, put it on and have a jolly good belly laugh!

6/10 for tragic.

A lot of people like the film who've I've spoken with. The film came out on DVD a couple weeks ago and it's right on the money on certain issues like gas prices and Wall Street.

Who could have imagined the chaos we are in these days? But this film really nails on the topics of greed and lack of human decency. It's almost scary reading the attacks on this film but then you realize the critics keep neglecting (or purposefully) exclude what the central point of the film: God.

All the other issues take a back seat to God. And that's what the film is driving at.

We're living in age where people would rather glamorize a serial killer film than give props to a film that attempts to prove God exists.

Granted, I could only get through 12 minutes of the movie but all facets of the movie were amateurish.

The writing was trite and the dialogue was forced. There was no flow.

The acting was atrocious, in part at times even from Billy Baldwin and Michael Madsen, two "name" actors.

The sound was spotty and I kept thinking I would see the boom mic at any time.

To sum up the movie in one scene, 10 minutes in: The Homeland Security guy finds the nuclear bomb that Madsen's character has set up to detonate. The guy pulls the core out, looks inside, and says, "It's U-235." He had no geiger counter or any kind of measurement device to verify this. My best guess is that the U-235 was clearly marked with an easy-to-read label stating "Caution: U-235." I actually expected the director to cut to the label just to prove to us it was a real nuke.

Bad movie without any aspect of it worth bragging on. These people on here who say they're movie buffs and give this movie a high rating have no idea what a good movie is. It's more than content. It takes good acting, camera-work, lighting, sound-work, writing, music score and directing.

Sadly, this movie contained none of the above criteria except maybe lighting.

First I'll throw in my two cents on an issue I wish I didn't have to comment on. This is a remarkable film for no other reason that it evokes passion. The critics who dislike the film continue to bash only the religious implications. But this is disingenuous. Surely, a film can stand on its merits regardless of whether one believes in God or not.

Movies that toyed with similar themes, like "12 Angry Men" or "Beautiful Mind," though great films, do not come close to packing the emotional wallop this film delivers. I dare anyone to tell me they didn't get teared up as the movie progressed and the characters reveal their own tragedies.

Of course as a realist drama, the performances in the film are crucial. Scalia is outstanding, as one would expect, but so is Tom Sizemore and the rest of the cast. Part of this must be due to the filmmakers, as Scalia, for example, doesn't come across nearly as well to me in some of his other films.

If The Genius Club has a flaw, it's that its relatively short (compared to the material available) running time makes for some unexplained or shallow turnabouts of character in the complex of good/evil interplay. The casino owner seems particularly distant to the viewer, for example, which is appropriate to the final state of her character, but which could have been explained better in transformation. But how wonderful is it to have a casino owner - the ingenuity of bringing the most shallow world and mixing it in with real religion is nothing short of imaginative audacity.

Finally note the contrast between the restrained closing scene (which is also the climax) and the melodramatic style of the almost everything that has preceded it in the film.

This is a fabulous, heartrending film, with grand, biblical and universal subtexts and an unusually developed but extremely charming romance. Unless you're completely averse to realist drama, you must see 'Genius Club' at least once.

This whole movie was made to make people aware of the world's problems. I can admire that, but there's one catch. Every theory in this movie is wrong. The so called "geniuses" have no knowledge about even the basic of science or no understanding of how the world works. It cannot enlighten you to, as it's supposed to do, it can only through you deeper into the dark with ignorant debates on religion, medicine, economy and politics.

The only spark of genius this movie had was implementing 2nd grade riddles into the story. The answers are banal yet the geniuses take their time to answer and not all of them even can. By this movie's standards of "genius", 3 quarters of the planet's population should be deemed masterminds of knowledge and everything else.

As a standalone movie with a horribly stupid script it's pretty good. If you like bad acting, bad cinematography, bad editing, bad plots, bad light effects, bad characters, pathetic flashbacks and cozy dumb endings then this movie's for you.

Now I'll admit I'm not the biggest Tom Sizemore fan in the world, although he has been in two great films that I have seen, Black Hawk Down... and this. The Genius Club is a very enjoyable and involving drama, with many excellent turns from it's cast.

This was a movie that I was glued to and the time flew by, because it seems like you go on a 'journey' with this character and you end up at the end in time to look back on it and think 'Wow, so that's what it was about' or 'That's what that meant'.

The cinematography is quite beautiful, I like the earthly colours of the basement photos and Sizemore's apartment, so suggestive of steadiness, calm and control, contrasting nicely with the turmoil of Sizemore's characters inner life.

The ending with the death speech is downright cheesy and disappointed me. This film doesn't need such cheap trickery to make its point.

On the whole, well worth watching but parts of it are a bit too Hollywood.

A solid 8 out of 10 for me.

The cast in this movie is sensational!! With memorable characters and excellent music, this is a great piece of work.

It's about these 7 geniuses who are forced to solve the world's problems in one night.

Disregarding that each character is a stereotype, the movie is entirely realistic and is an eye-opening look at the emotions and impact that a social life or a cruel mistreated life takes on these geniuses.

They reveal their deepest secrets, and learn about themselves in the process Original and insightful, with a large cult following that it deserves

100000000000000000000000000000 kudos!

I wouldn't normally feel the need to comment online about a movie. But this film is terrible in every way possible. I feel like someone stole 2 hours of my life..

How on earth is any intelligent person supposed to believe for even 1 second that these people are ABOVE genius in IQ with the lines they have to deliver. The script is truly awful. Its clearly created by some one with no real grasp of the problems facing planet earth, no idea about politics, not a shred of understanding in the area of economics, in short its dumb and clumsy. It's only real aim is to voice the opinion that our only salvation is through GOD. And even the religious ideas in this film are put across in a child like way.

Baldwins atheist 'genius' character cant even come up with one good argument to prove GOD is imaginary in response to the religious 'genius' arguments for the existence of GOD. Well what would expect in a film made by Christians. Balance? no chance.

This movie is garbage, I didn't think it would be great but I expected more than this. And the so called movie buffs here obviously work for the film company who made this or are as dumb as this film.

This thinly veiled pseudo religious hogwash should be avoid at all costs.

While I am neither an expert of movie mechanics nor of the so-called art of acting, there are a few points worth sharing to this piece of work:

• This movie may be viewed as dumbed-down pseudo-dramatic - or as brilliantly mocking the 'intense thrillers' of our dear Hollywood time and age. - The questions the movie concerns itself may appear to be a bit huge to fit into our daily lives, and the answers may seem to be the most radical ones (or the most normal, depending on your point of view and degree of thinking). There is, however, no doubt that a thinking mind must come across both question and answer as portrayed here. - This movie will hurt, if you choose to see it with open eyes. Since most people prefer feeling decently dazed to seeing the truth, this will not be a popular movie. - Hopefully, I am wrong about the previous point. I would justify my hopes for us as a human race.

Oh, and - you really don't have to be a genius to get this movie: Think for yourself. Few messages in this world are as beautiful as this.

there are certain movies over the past decades that achieve a sort of raw emotion inside of us that can't be captured on purpose. this is a movie that is so simple, yet so unbelievably poetic that it is hard to to believe any Hollywood studio made it. i saw this movie the first time at the theater last year, and I never forgot how moved it made me feel.

the end of the movie is so unbelievably powerful that when stephen baldwin finally reveals his past, it feels like you have discovered the answers to the world's problems, our soulless humanity in search of God and ultimate meaning. i don't know of too many movies that can claim that. i read some cynical film critic's review and you know he's the type who would complain that mona lisa's nose is too small or picasso really wasn't all that. this is a movie that will never loses its power, even 20 years from now.