This will be the first of this series called, Not Your Martyr Movies, and will have myself, my partner, and sometimes guests watch a bad Christian/religious movie and answer questions about what they have just watched.
I am… Gabriel is a movie about a possibly orphaned boy who gets kidnapped by a married couple, murders a doctor, and impregnates his pseudo mom by the end of the movie.
Before Watching:
Based on the title and trailer of this movie, what do you think is going to happen?
Melissa- The town is experiencing issues in a post apocalyptic situation and a murderous young boy comes and brainwashes everyone into believing he is an angel. This trailer is truly cut like a horror movie and seems like it will be perfectly low budget. There are a few actors I recognize from many of the other bad Christian movies I have seen and am excited to see them in this. I’m not looking forward to the terrible acting I expect from the young boy who seems to be the lead actor, but hopefully this movie will have plenty of ridiculous scenes to make up for it.
How Christian do you predict this movie will be?
M- I mean the movie is called, I am... Gabriel, so I anticipate it will be quite religious. It seems to follow many of the same beats other Christian movies have (small country town, economic problems due to government, children performing miracles, all white people).
After Watching:
Does this movie pass the bechdel test?
M- No. There were a couple of times that I thought it would, but it ended up never happening. There was one moment when a group of women were making prayer mats, but Gabriel was either there or the mention of God. This movie actually has a few troubling moments where a woman continually goes to the one sheriff in the town about her abusive husband. The sheriff ends up not really helping the situation and the woman and her husband stay together without any further mention of the abuse.
Ian- If you count a short conversation about making prayer mats then maybe, otherwise no.
How many characters were white?
M- I would say 99% of the cast is white in this movie. We saw a couple of black people in the background, but that was about it. This is fairly standard in most Christian movies, and with a low budget and small cast, I was not surprised.
What was the craziest moment of the movie (that everyone thought was normal)?
M- Definitely the craziest moment in this movie was the people in the town never questioning the origin of the boy, Gabriel. He almost gets run over by the couple who takes him in. They ask where he comes from and want to call his parents, but he denies having any kind of guardian. So instead of trying to further question the boy or taking him to the police, they take him in their car and kidnap him. When Gabriel meets different people in the town they barely question where his parents are or how he got there. Everyone just starts believing that he is a mystical and magical boy who wanders through the town randomly.
I- Honestly the craziest part of the movie was when a woman, who previously went to the sheriff about how her husband hit her, went to the sheriff this time because her husband needed a friend. Why did her husband need a friend? Because he felt bad about hitting his wife? The wife really seemed to be blaming herself and the movie never really commented on it.
Did anyone die or almost die?
M- Yes, several characters almost die. Gabriel almost dies when is almost run over by the car, the wife beater when he slams into a car after being chased by the sheriff, and a teenage girl almost overdoses on mystery pills. The only doctor in town has a poor man’s cough which apparently indicates death. He at no point seeks any kind of medical attention himself and is basically murdered by Gabriel and taken away.
I- Since the actions of the town can only be explained by some kind of chemical leak, I assume most of the characters died shortly after the end of the movie.
Is there an atheist character?
M- There is actually an atheist character in this movie. The sheriff acts as the skeptic and is the only character who attempts to find out if Gabriel is in the missing person’s system. But of course, he is also the antagonist of this movie because he does not believe in the “miracles” Gabriel is performing. He does declare to Gabriel at one point that he does not believe in God, but ends up like most “atheists” in Christian movies by just being really angry at God for no reason. His character makes the most reasonable points, but is seen as a bad person until he eventually changes his mind and believes.
I- You know how miracles happen all the time and atheists get angry about them? You know, like that time when a family member magically got cured and all the atheists you knew got mad? Yea me neither but in this movie it posits that atheists HATE miraculous recoveries and will do anything to stop them.
Which characters would you fuck, marry, kill?
M- If I lived in this movie’s universe I would fuck the doctor, so that I would hopefully catch his contagious unknown cough disease and die. I would marry the wife beater’s wife to help get her out of the abusive relationship she is in. And I would kill Gabriel. He is a weird fucking kid and I at no point would trust him.
I- No thanks.
What was the movie’s message?
M- I assume the movie was trying to send a message that “miracles” performed by a boy who is actually an angel are possible and the only way to believe them is to get on your knees and perform… a prayer.
I- When your small town is being hit by a drought and an economic depression or when your family is sick and your husband is hitting you there is one thing to do, get on your knees and pray. God wants to hear what you want to say and then maybe he will help you. Don’t try and fix any of these problems on your own. I would consider this to be the second worst plan, first being voting republican.
What small changes would make this movie better?
M- Not much would make this movie better, but a few things would help. The music was horrible and made it impossible to hear a lot of the characters. Also, if everytime Gabriel performed a “miracle” they played psycho killer music, it would have been amazing.
I- This movie could easily be a horror movie. There was even a part where Gabriel said that a miracle was “not from him”, which makes me wonder what force caused the rain??
Would you recommend for other people to watch this movie?
M- This had plenty of hilarious moments and I would definitely recommend watching it with a group of people. The middle of the movie seemed to drag on at times, but it has enough ‘what the fuck’ moments to keep it interesting.
I- This movie needs a big group for sure but I would put this pretty low on good bad movies. If someone edits some of the better parts with creepy music, the drug scene and the crazy ending together that would be most of what made this movie fun.
Here is the trailer if you are interested in watching a bunch of people on their knees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzCycQCsy8o