God Awful Movies - 307: Courageous

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

This week, Frank and Dan from Thank God I'm Atheist join us for an atheist review of Courageous, the story of a corrupt cop, a dead daughter, a 5K run, a parenting pledge, a down on his luck construction worker, and absolutely no connective tissue. --- If you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/godawful Hear more from Frank and Dan on Thank God I'm Atheist Check out our other shows, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, Citation Needed, and D&D Minus. Our theme music is written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars. If you’d like to hear more, check out their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EvilGiraffesOnMars/?fref=ts All our other music was written and performed by Morgan Clarke. To hear more from him, check him out here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/

He's not sure he can run five miles. Oh, and um, yeah, I don't think he could run five miles either. But also, they can confuse kilometers for miles, which I love. And it's clear, like the kid is talking about kilometers and the dad's like, I don't run kilometers, I only run miles like a man. I'm an American god damn it. Miles, none of those pansy-ass kilometers He just insists running his five miles on the wrong side of the road gets hit by on traffic

America God awful movie Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will be? Who will either sitting somewhere doing something, but have no fear. I am not doing today's show alone. No, celebrating their five hundredth episode are none other than the two ex-mose for show show. Two men so atheistic God no longer believes in them. Frank and Dan of the Thank God I'm atheist podcast gentleman. Welcome and congratulations on 500 episodes. Thank you.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. We are celebrating not knowing when to quit. All right. So I've got to ask 500 episodes. That's huge. But here's the burning question. I'm sure everyone is wondering how many times do people not get that your title as a joke

and ask you questions about it? Oh, my God. Literally. people not get that your title as a joke and ask you questions about it. Oh my God. Literally every time I say that like because there's this moment right when you when people like, Oh, what are you doing? I'm like, I do some podcasts and the really what's the name of your podcast? And I have to heave this little internal sigh. And then I say, thank God I'm atheist. And then they go, oh, and then I go three, two, one. Oh! It's basically, it's a grenade of a joke. You pull the pin, you'll lock it.

You run away. Hey, I'm just impressed by your bravery at going straight for podcasts. I started radio and pray there. I don't follow the questions. That's up with it. That's a good idea. That's a good idea. If you get lucky someone will be like, oh, I like Beyonce and you'll be like,

I also enjoy the music of Beyonce. It's the problem is that I have multiple jobs and none of them are the ones that like, like people up. I, yeah, I literally should just do the TikTok thing if I'm an accountant, but I can't. It's just, I'm an actor. Oh, really?

What are you in? If I see you in any, oh, fuck me. No, I'm a podcaster. Oh, god damn it. Have you seen Cypher in the snow? I can't. I was not in that. I just hated it.

You just hate it. That's right. You were in the other one. All right. Just made me feel bad. That's all callbacks. All right. Enough of this nice, it is in buddy buddy. So tell us Frank,

what will we be breaking down today? We watched courageous. It's the story of a bunch of perfectly standard Christian fathers who decide to ensure that their kids religious trauma syndrome is severe by becoming insanely intense Christian fathers. And some of them are cops, I guess. That is an excellent summary of this bad shittery Frank Welton.

And Dan, here's the real challenge. How bad was this movie? Well, if you liked training day, but you hated having to wait through all that annoying cop stuff just to get to the heartfelt message about family life. You love this movie. It's all cops aren't bastards. The movie. Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Oh, unappreciated if they haven't watched the movie yet. All right. So, oh my god, I do have to say this is one of the worst movies you guys have made

I This is it's like it's not good bad the way that a lot of these are like Delightfully bad. It's just Painfully annoying so irritating. It's the worst Yeah, and then you and you gave Marsh the the fucking kid the musical one. I'm pissed Oh, yeah, Marsh got to do an alien musical starring Kelly Copeland's daughter and I'm sure I'm here for Alex Kendrick pretending to be a cop. Oh my god, it was it was rough.

Oh, that'll teach you for having 500 episodes. So right. Is there anything you'd like to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at? Yeah, best worst parental advice. Because let me tell you something, this movie, all it will talk about is how to be a better father, but the only concrete ideas we get are that you should go jogging with your son if he asks you to for some reason.

And daughters are your property until you give them to another man. That's all you got. Very much so. Yeah. And I'm gonna take best worst solo dancing. Oh my God, yes. And as if one cringey look at me, Daddy, this is how you dance scene isn't enough.

There's also a daddy dancing solo that he has to do later as some kind of repentance, I think. And the hand position, I mean, we're gonna get to it, but the hand position during daddy dancing, I needed a time machine to go back to younger me who was smelling different jokes than I am. Yeah, it was rough, it was bad. It doesn't look like daddy's dancing solo. We'll get to it.

We'll get to it. And now usually when we do a best worst, I then, you know, give an example or two, but this is going to be a little take home assignment for all the listeners. I'm going to go with best worst IMDB trivia. Oh, because the IMDB trivia written for this movie was written by a teenager who is a fan of the film I can only imagine someone definitely involved in the production. It's a teenager like half explaining the film and half defending the film. It's dark. I can't read them because they're plentiful and bounteous, but they are fantastic. Do yourself the favor of checking this one out. Also, if you watch these movies along with us and you turn on X-ray, for some reason, when you turn on X-ray, the IMDB trivia pops up during each of the scenes, which gave this film the funniest commentary.

I have ever experienced Werner Herzog has nothing on this could use just like the guys on the bikes Rememe to us while we were filming the movie Popping up in the corner of my iPad as I tried to watch this movie All right, well we have a blue lives matter flag to beat a DC cop to death with and while we failed to reflect on the irony of that We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be back in a bit with courageous. Frank, Dan, thanks so much for agreeing to be on the show again. Sure, no problem. You're probably going to do it.

Awesome, awesome. So, uh, it's crazy. But before I record, you guys are going to need these. Is this, is this a pith helmet? Is, uh, a machete? Yeah. yeah. So when you sit in a tiny studio with me recording in the middle of the summer, I get a pretty serious case of swamp ass.

So. Oh, like how serious? I mean, technically my ass is protected land in Florida right now, like legally, it's a whole thing. My ass in Florida. Terr, like legally, it's a whole thing. My ass in Florida. Terrifying. Yeah. Okay. But Eli, if your swamp ass is really that much of a problem, it is. It is. Why don't you just try the Hello Tushy 3.0 modern bidetachment? What's the Hello Tushy 3.0 modern bidetachment?

Well, obviously it's a stylish, eco-friendly, refreshing little shower for your ass. Ooh, tell me more. Hello Tushy 3.0, clean soggy butts like a champ, but it doesn't just stop there. It cleans itself with the smart, spray, automatic, self-cleaning nozzle. Ooh, I don't know, Dan. Do I have to buy some kind of French plumber, like a fancy Mario who steals the affections of my wife? No, the Hello Tushy Bade attaches to your existing toilet with no electricity

or extra plumbing needed. And Hello Tushy cuts toilet paper used by 80%. So it'll pay for itself within a few months. Ooh, defeat swamp ass. Go to HelloTushy.com slash awful to get 10% off plus free shipping This is a special offer for our listeners at hellotushy.com slash awful for 10% off HelloTushy.com slash awful All right then let's get recorded guys

Are we gonna be spending a lot of the recording talking about your ass? I mean probably yeah, he does spending a lot of the recording talking about your ass? I mean, probably. Yeah, he does that a lot. Okay. Okay, everyone, it's time for the next big Kendrick Brothers hit movie. Ooh, uh, hey, what about a movie about fatherhood or a gritty police drama? Mmm, see, I was thinking a movie about how you could still love Jesus after your kid dies. Oh, but I really want to do my one!

Well, I already bought the police uniforms and everything. Guys, guys, it's okay. We'll compromise and we'll do all of them. All of them? Yeah, we'll make an action-cop movie about fatherhood where one of their kids dies. Won't that be a little ridiculous and, you know, tedious? Yeah, that sounds really, really bad. Okay, that's a fair point, but can I remind you that our first movie was about not lying as a used car salesman

and it made us all literally millionaires? Cop Daddy Dead Dotter movie it is! There it is, we're back. And we're going to start with some logos. Oh my God, we're going to start with some logos. Literally, it was TriStar, which, come on, TriStar, really? I was like, is this a fake TriStar? Are they like, do they just rip off their logo or something? It's like a brainy, like they ripped it off of a YouTube video. No, it was real TriStar, provident films, affirm films, sure wood pictures.

It really takes a village to make a bad movie. Sure the fuck does. Yeah, I wrote my notes. Who did the Kendrick Brothers blow at TriStar? So many of their movies make it under their label. Oh my God. Well, I mean, I can't really blame on this genre is a cash cow. You, you can spend $15 to make a movie and end up making a

force. Sure, make one, Dan. We should make Chris. Yes. We should cry our way to the bank. And so we're going to start out with a nice big action scene. There's a gentleman getting gas when what should happen, but a gang banger steals his car. Yeah, but I have to just touch on the fact that the contention that gets the guy away from the car. And first of all, by the way, we're instantly set up with the good black guy versus the

bad black guy. Oh, yeah. We are like the good black guy and his suburban white dad outfit with his button down shirt tucked into his jeans with sensible tennis shoes versus the bad black guy who's a urban thug with a do rag and muscle tank tank. Like, ooh, what's going to happen? Yeah, there's some quality work by the word, word drug department. I know exactly who these guys are based on stereotypes. Like it was just. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But the other thing is that like the thing that gets good black guy away from his SUV is that there is apparently diarrhea all over his windshield.

And a how did he never notice this until now? He's finished pumping his gas, which we were privileged to watch five minutes of. And then he literally reaches his hand out of his car and touches whatever nasty, nastiness is not like, don't you don't have to touch it. Just go, just go watch it. And watch it. How is that not the first thing he did? Right.

When he got in the gas station is, shit, I got to get this off my window. It's so much. Yeah, you could have been, you could have been doing that while you're pumping gas. What about that? It's so much, it's very clearly someone from props or set being like, oh, we need a little schmutz on the windshield and someone like throwing a mustard sandwich at the windshield. Oh my God. Yeah, that'll show up on camera.

Good job. We made a movie. So yeah, the gang banger, who by the way, was hanging out by a car of his own. This movie is very unclear how crimes work, but he was hanging out by a car of his own. He's decided he wants good black black suburban dad's car. So he jumps in and starts to drive away, and and good black guy immediately like hangs on to the window. He's pulled along behind him. I was like, dude, let it go. You have insurance. He Superman dives halfway into the vehicle through the window, the driver's side window and is literally tugging with all of his might on the steering wheel. As this

guy is pulling away in his vehicle, if this had happened in real life, everyone involved in this would be dead by now. Oh, it's, yeah, it's so escalated and dangerous. So, and I can't describe how long this scene goes on. He's like holding onto the car and the guy tries yanking the wheel and he's running along behind him like a fucking loony tune for a second there. And he's pulling onto the window and he grabs the guy and they struggle. And finally they crash the car and the gang banger rolls out and runs away. And then white ladies stop to like help the good boy guy. Oh, and this is where we, this is the first of many moments when we know for a fact

that this movie is not related in any way to reality, because if those carons had stopped with this and dialed 911, they very clearly would have just been yelling. A black man tried to steal another car, a car that another black man had very clearly already stolen. They would definitely be calling the cops on the. Everyone involved. Everyone involved. For sure. But he doesn't take their help. He struggles and he opens the door and it turns out his baby was in the car. Yeah, he's a here baby that would have been on mute the whole time. Yeah, okay, that's the thing is we are supposed to retroactively go, oh, that's why he was so

insisted about getting his car back except at no point did he go, hey, my baby is in this car. Look, I understand the grabbing onto the steering wheel and grabbing onto the guy now in the context of your baby's in the car. What I don't understand is like, now I'm going to wrestle this car free from this gangbanger's hands. And then I'll explain that there's a child at risk in the situation. Well, and also, like I said before, he was very clearly attempting to crash the vehicle. This is, this is 100% the wrong way to handle this situation. Yeah, this, this is either a heroic attempt or an attempt at a late term abortion. Well, and as a non-parent, I'd never heard about these mute buttons for babies.

Can more babies get this feature? Like that's, that's what my take was. I will sign up, I'll tell you I will sign up first. If they start offering them the public, I will sign up for that shit earlier than a COVID vaccine, my friend. So now the cops are here asking him questions. And this is where Alex Kendrick first shows up. And I just want to say that one of the weird consequences of doing 307 episodes of this show is getting to watch Alex Kendrick get in shape because he's a movie star now. So like this is somewhere between the complete dumpiness of the first movie where he was used car salesman and his most recent movie where he's in like human looking shape where he's like, he's still dumpy, but he's, I made a million dollars off

my last movie, dumpy, you know what I'm saying? I did not realize that this was the good version. That is frightening. I was, because I looked at him and I was like, look, this guy is the director of the film. He's cast himself as the star of the film. You would think he could avoid accentuating his own bald spot. And I don't know, maybe CGI out two or three of his chins. I'm not sure.

Yep, but you'd think Lord knows you've got the budget at this point. I just don't know why, but this is where good black guy who has a name by the way, to go movie. His name is Nathan. He's actually a cop too. And he starts work at the police station Monday. Yeah, I just want to point out There will never be a reason for this scene in the movie. I mean later on gang banger will like remember Nathan and be like Oh, I remember I don't like that guy. I tried to steal his car with his baby in it

But like this is the clumsiest possible way to introduce a new cop to the precinct He might as well fall out of the sky and be like, oh, I've been sent from heaven to be your only black cop friend. Well, yeah, but in fairness, I feel like this scene will never be important in the movie is half of this movie. Yep. That's true. I don't feel like this particular scene is unique in that respect.

It's really the first half of the movie that shouldn't be there. I mean, the whole thing shouldn't be there, but. Yeah. This movie is directed in the style that the car was just driven. So it was driven the wheel and the other. So this is where we get introduced to Alex's partner, Shane. They're talking as they drive back about whether or not they would have done what he did. And tell me if I'm wrong, your guys, the answer seems to be no, right? Are they discussing how they wouldn't have tried to chase that car if it had their baby in it? I mean, I think they're right.

I think you definitely don't do that because as we've discussed, you're going to kill your baby. Yeah. I think though that the point the movie's trying to make is that these guys aren't good people, right? Oh, right. And the thing is that this movie continually tries to make that point that these are not great dads, but they can't bring themselves to actually be

like genuinely bad dads. Oh, so it's always just this sort of like, bring themselves to actually be like genuinely bad. Yes. Mm-hmm. So it's always just this sort of like, hey, look at how not quite as engaged as they could be they are. Right. Yeah, after 307 Christian movies, I can say I have literally run out of talking points of,

I'm sorry, I missed your piano recital, honey, I'll make the right one. Right? I have missed your piano recital, honey, I'll make the right one. Right. I have made more piano recitals just from the sheer clips I've seen of these movies. Oh, my God. Then these dads have missed. And this is also where we're going to introduce the conflict between Alex and his son,

truly one of the best in the history of Christian cinema. Alex Kendrick, again, he looks like me. He looks like a lunch lady is ironically dropping mashed potatoes from a height onto a tray. And his son wants him to run a five K race with him. Yeah. And that is literally as good as the conflict gets here. It is literally like that is how he is a bad dad is that he will not agree to do a physical feat of which he is very clearly in cable. Yeah, look, I love the shit out of my son, but that's a hard no for me, dog. I will polyamorous

gay Mary or runner so that he can sign up with you, but I do not run a K 5K for any reason other than a 4.99K being on fire. Okay, that is the limit. And he's like, well, I'm not running 5K with him. And the wife is like, I don't know, can you do any other activity with him? And he's like, well, fine, I'll build shed with him. And she's like, I meant something fun. And he's like, well, I don't know what you want from me.

This is also where we're introduced to adorable little definitely not going to die. She may as well enter and exit every scene of this movie. She's in singing. I like being alive. Yeah. It is kind of that. Conversely, the sun may as well enter and exit every scene with, I'm grumpy and a teenager.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, but she wants to go to a birthday party. Daddy says, yes. And they're doing this weird attempt at family drama here in this scene where the teen son who just got no about his 5K sees that the daughter's led to go to a birthday party and does it like, call. I'm a teacher and I'm cranky, but like, is he mad? Because the sister's allowed to go to birthday party, but his dad won't do an Olympic fucking event with him. It feels different to me.

It just feels different. Well, and the dad lords it over the little girl about this birthday party. She's like, I'd like to go to the party and he's like, well, have you earned it by a blah, blah, blah? Like, have you done work that I approve of to earn the joy that it will bring you? Because you're eight now, so, you know. I was just like, so the answer about going

to another kid's birthday party might have been no. Right? Does that. Right? Okay. That's fine. Yeah, she's, she's the good kid. Remember, you just give her what she wants. Yeah, she's not the, the shithead that you don't like. Yeah. So now we cut to the station the next morning and they're having cop home room.

I don't know. This thing isn't a lot of movies, so I assume it's real. But whatever that thing is that's cop home room They're having cop home room. Yeah, and he's inviting everyone over for steaks and beer these men the men Cops in this movie will spend so much fucking time together and like look I know I'm a workaholic and I probably don't spend as much time as family as I should But I have never spent as much time with anybody at these four cops will spend grilling and hanging out.

Right, which is a thing that does not change after they resolve to be better followed. That's not a way. They don't change that in the slightest. And I like when he's inviting everybody to his house and then he leans over to the guy that I only know as rookie. I'm impressed, I've noticed in your notes Eli Eli that you seem to think that these guys all have names

Do they ever say any of their names? Incorrect. The only one whose name I learned was Nathan because I didn't want to keep calling him good black guy versus bad guy Which is I'm sure what he was called in the script until this actor got his hands on it. Yeah, totally. Anyway, he so he leans over to the rookie and he goes, hey, you have no life come to the barbecue and he's like, I've got a life. And the guy goes, oh, yeah, what are you doing on Saturday? And I wanted the rookie to say, I don't know, probably just not going to your shitty cook out.

Stayin' home and yankin' it. Yeah, happy? There. Gonna choke myself like the guy from Kung Fu. Yeah, happy? Now we all know. And this is where the sheriff delivers the, I'm gonna go ahead and say theme of the movie.

Oh dear God. Oh, and they hit it hard many times. It's bullshit. Oh yeah, he, I just call him Sheriff Daddy because like, because you know, he's a little bit of a daddy. Absolutely. There's a whole, there is a definite like super leather. You know that this guy has a second life.

And they hit that it in the movie. They totally hit that. Yeah. Just Sheriff Daddy talking about baddies. Yeah, so what he repeats here is this very strange, very dogwistly right wing bad statistic that criminals and drug addicts all come from fatherless homes and one, the way that those statistics are measured

even without accounting for income is bad. Yeah. Because what they call fatherless, like also includes like gay parents and happy couples and probably amorous, they're just like, no, there's not one guy here. Too many penises in this building. So it's bad with that. But also when you account for income, rich people with single parents do fine.

What this movie is not saying is a fucking sucks to be poor in this country, huh? Like a priors like a vicious cycle. So instead, they're just going to use their dogwistly code for black people or bad dads and that's why they do crimes. Yeah, it's based on nothing more than a racist stereotype that the right has been hitting or super hard, which I was surprised, frankly, that the sheriff didn't get up there and just say, like, look, I'm just going to blow this dog whistle a few times. You'll be like, yeah. But yeah, he hits on this and the movie will repeat this point. This idea that single father

households are bad over and over and over again throughout the film. Oh my God. And he ends his speech, his lecture, two cops, like I'm not sure why they need to hear this, but he ends his lecture by going, so go go out there and make sure that you're good dads so that you're not like these black, oh, a new guy. I didn't see you there. Exactly.

Now, Frank, some of our listeners might not be aware of this, but you went to film school So, a new guy, didn't see you there. Exactly. Now, Frank, some of our listeners might not be aware of this, but you went to film school. Yeah. This announcing of the theme, is that standard? Yes, absolutely. I remember distinctly the section on repeating the theme of your screenplay in every scene. And with most lines of dialogue. And I just have to say they're doing a great job here.

Really good. I'm impressed. I have not missed the theme, and that's, that's really important. Yeah. No, this is, uh, this is definitely from the in case grandma wakes up during the talking parts school of script writing. That was the expunging subtlety 101 class like you take. So now we cut over to them, cop in, and this will be the first of a running joke in the movie.

Alex is talking to his wife on the phone, and then he switches over to the sheriff, and he accidentally tells him that he loves him. Oh my God. I can you imagine loving it other man. And he is so mad that he said I love you to the sheriff. Like way too mad. He goes completely insane over it.

I was like, I was surprised he didn't say, let's go find a black teenager to take this anger out of him. He might as well pull a gun out and shoot him. So strong is the gay fear. Because like, look, this comaphobic trope is in a lot of stuff, right? It's problematic, but nothing beats Christian movie problematic. We watch him reveal the crying game revelation. Spins list.

And the need to have to accidentally saying, I love you to his boss. Well, I mean, they've heard of Freudian slips. I mean, yeah, so yeah, exactly. What's amazing is I wrote that joke about go find a black teenager to take their anger out on, and then it immediately cut to black teenagers, which I thought was astounding. Okay, fun. Part of the IMDB trivia here, it apparently was really, really hot when they shot this scene. So part of the reason that this scene is shot as though the cameraman was trying to desperately

escape a 103 degree house is apparently because the cameraman was trying to escape a 103 degree house. And this is the scene where we get my favorite character of the whole film, which is the cops go up to the door of the house and go, please let us in! And this woman answers the door and she's like junky woman number two or whatever. And she just opens the door and goes, oh hell no, I'm not going to be a part of this. And just walks right past them and leaves. It was amazing. I just think she was really pissed because she thought she was in a role for the wire. I think that I think they lied to her and just figured it out. You know, oh shit, is this a Kendrick's Brothers movie? Absolutely not. I'm not going to

trade. It's a terrible stereotype. But yeah, this is bad copying. I don't know how we can actually find what accurate copying is, but I cannot believe that real police procedure is walk into a darkened house with your gun strong yelling into the middle distance, come out. Yeah. Although it would explain a lot about the Breonna Taylor killing. I'm just saying, if this is standard police procedure, I kind of get it now. Well, I mean, no, because if it were standard police procedure, and they knew that there were black people inside, they would just start shooting and then you right, you run a tank into the

side of it with Janet Rio inside. Yeah, exactly. But the black guys escape out the back. Yeah. And now it's time for an Alex Kendrick chasing my friends, my friends, my God, Alex Kendrick looks like someone did the tar drip experiment with a bag of marshmallow fluff And he is now according to the fiction of this movie going to outrun a 20 something year old African American Oh my god

This is where I was like well, okay at least he's caught on a little bit You know he he didn't as the director of the film He didn't catch on to like making himself not look like a piece of shit, but at least he figured out that he could make himself look like he can run, which is the believability of him chasing down this very athletic young man. It's zero. It is zero.

Not so much. But yeah, they catch the youths. They shoot one of them with the taser. Again, fun IMDB fact. They tried lowering the voltage on this taser, but all that happened is the actor Nathan Good Black guy shoved himself with the taser. Again, the IMDB trivia is price else. And the use of the taser was like good policing as well. Like it was like he jumps out from around the corner. It's like surprise taser. Zap. You know, like, not sure that's how that goes down either. No, no. Again, it explains if the cops of the last five years had been trained on the movie courageous,

a lot of what's gone on in the world makes sense now. Oh, and they make Nathan the black cop say the line, I'm getting too old for us. I was like, are you kid? Does Danny Gliver not have a lawyer? What is happening? Also, it's your first day, buddy. Like, we established that earlier. You don't get to do the I'm getting too old for this on your first day. Yeah. But yeah, they're all celebrating their arrest and gang member from earlier. Remember the guy who stole the car? He sees that they've been doing police work in his neighborhood and he's up to no good. Yeah, and he does this like, like he looks at him.

He's kind of glaring, right? And he puts his little fingers in like the shape of a gun, right? And goes this little little thing at the cop. And I was just like, wow, the subtleties are so great here. Like it's just the simplest gesture from this gangster guy. And it queues the audience in. And it's just really clever and subtle storytelling. Absolutely. Yeah. It might have been too subtle. I just sent their wondering what is he thinking. I really wanted one of the cops to turn around and be like, hey, are you doing finger guns at us? Are you a guy for later in the movie? You know that we have real guns, right? We're just going to the real gun you're under arrest now. So now it's time to meet Havi and Havi was almost my best worst, best worst model minority.

Oh, yes, that is true. Havi will spend the movie either looking for a job or being also grateful to have gotten to a job and if you're thinking, hey Eli, that's a really, really offensive impersonation of Hispanic people that you're doing. No, no, no, it's a perfect impersonation of Hispanic people that you're doing. No, no, it's a perfect impersonation of Abyssal in this film. Oh, man, and God fucks with this man. Like, if this guy actually believes in God, he should find himself a better deity because the way that his God treats him in the beginning of this movie, unacceptable, unacceptable deity, that is not acceptable.

When we find out that he's getting laid off from his job, right? And I'm just like, he must be like the worst worker in the universe because we have a labor shortage right now. I don't know if he's like, heard of this, like, who nobody in construction is laying off anyone. Well, as we'll learn,

Havi spends most of his time praying and being a stereotype. So maybe they got complaints for the rest of the workers. Here's how much of a stereotype he is. He comes home to tell his wife that he has been fired. And she replies that all she has

is rice and beans to feed their children. And then gives him a single tortilla uncooked tortilla to eat for lunch. She might as well have put a mariachi hat on him for him to wear. I was like, seriously, one tortilla. Sell one of the many crosses hanging in your house and buy some food people. And we should also point out that the Kendrick brothers have attempted for this movie to write Spanish.

And Spanish is a real thing, right? Spanish speakers who switch back and forth between English and Spanish. They do not switch sentence to sentence paragraph to paragraph as clearly delineated by Alex Kendrick in the script because what they will do is they will speak entire Spanish sentences and then for no reason Starts being entire English sentences and then monologue again to themselves in Spanish. It's very unclear Well, and I watched the movie with the subtitles on and one of the funny details was the Every time Harvey speaks it says in English Yes, it's all in English. Oh, that's amazing.

So meanwhile, over at Nathan's house, teenagers are fighting and based on the last scene, I'm going to guess that Nathan is going to get fired and only have a single piece of watermelon from his wife for dinner. Oh my God, it's weird because this is just a normal suburban household, right? That's what we're setting up here. But then this black mother, does she threaten the kid? Yeah, she literally says, don't make me get Mr. Pow Pow. Mr. Pow Pow. Mr. Pow Pow. Thank you. I was like, what, hey, I think what you're saying is that you're threatening him with violence,

but maybe you mean cocaine. I think that's what we call that in college. I don't know what you're saying. No, I'm pretty sure that's good Christian lady for I'm going to beat my child now for not putting on his PJs. Yeah. That's what the whole thing was about. Yeah, I mean, look, child abuse is one thing,

but giving it a weird cute nickname, that takes it to a whole other level. Yeah, and also this had to have been the Kendrick brothers thinking that they were using like black slang. I think they must have thought that this was that like Mr. Powell is how black full talk. Yeah. At some point Alex Kendrick walked over to this actress and was like, Hey, when your man may beat you, did she call it Mr. Powell? And then she gave him an atomic

wedgie and he left it in the script anyway. The other thing that we learn in this scene and this is going to be very important is that his daughter, who will be the recipient of the creepiest scene in the film, wait for it. Oh God. His daughter has a boy who likes her, but the boy doesn't go to church and he has saggy pants, so dad does not approve. He literally, the big thing is that she is 15 and she's not allowed to date until she's 17. And I was just like that,, there's nowhere in the country

where that's a thing, right? Is you have to wait till you're 17 to even think, and also the setup is he says to her, you can't date anyone until they've met me and they can't meet me until you're 17. There's so many rules. I just wrote in my notes, this parental strategy is brought to you by religion, religion, the same people who came up with the idea that never talking about sex will prevent your kids from having it.

It's like we're trying to cause teen pregnancy. Oh, aren't they though. Yeah. So now it's time for the cookout. And this is the daddy daughter dance scene that we talked about. So he's giving Shane a ride somewhere. We never find out where we do know that they have lollipops there. Just a weird side note. It looks like it looks like they're going to like an old folks home or maybe a city library. It's very unclear, but it has a drive-through.

It doesn't make sense. Yeah, but no, nothing telling us that it's a bank. No, that's where you get lollipops and that would have a drive-through and somebody would be walking out with a lollipop. Okay. I gotta tell you, Frank, I did not make this connection, so I'm really grateful for you.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time being like lollipops are available at doctors offices and candy store. All right, it's all coming together. But while they wait for him to go in and do his banking, she likes this terrible fucking Christian song. I mean, it's Christian music. You couldn't find any Christian good. You had all the music for the first 1500 years of human history. You couldn't find a good song. Well, and it's amazing because this was the worst song, but when they do a callback to the scene, they're going to find an even worse worse. It is shocking how bad the music. Yeah, spoilers a callback later, but he will later dance with his daughter to a different song.

So the daughter goes, Daddy, dance with me and gets out of the truck and he's like, no, I'm not. I would be too embarrassed. People think I was clear or something. And so she dances by herself. Oh, so I just I'm literally or something. And so she dances by herself. Oh, so sad. I'm literally watching this and I go and I wrote, Gorsh, I wonder if his journey will end with him finally dancing

with his girl. Oh, I did not correctly predict how this would play out, but I was a hundred percent positive that we would be, like it was just the most obvious thing you could possibly do. Well, and the purve factor, the cring be like, it was just the most obvious thing that you could possibly do. Well, and the purve factor, the grin, like, there was something, and I'm not entirely sure what it is, because a little girl dancing around in her dad watching

shouldn't on the surface be purvy. There's nothing purvy about that, right? Right. But there was something so purvy about the way that she was dancing and the way that he was watching. And I was just like, I was like, this is not good. Yes. This is, this is really gross.

And Eli, I'm, I'm at it you right now. Yeah. It's the, it's the scariest scene in the movie and this movie has several shootouts where Alex Kendrick just rolls down the window and stares at his daughter like they're bringing out fresh chicken to the all you can eat but they. It's also very clear in this scene that and maybe this is where they make it most clear that he's a bad dad because it becomes obvious that his toxic masculinity is his favorite kid.

Oh. And Shane gets back in the car and there's this weird moment where Shane goes, dude, dance with your daughter and he's like, I dance with my wife. I'm running my nose. That's because I fuck her. I'll dance with my daughter, like fuck her. And it's like, okay. Which, you know what?

We don't get too far from that moment later on in the film, not with him, but with the whole dads and daughters thing is it's scary. It's a little it's a little much in this movie. We're gonna peak later in the film So now it's barbeque time and the guys are sitting around now I don't have that many male friends. Maybe you guys are gonna have to tell me you guys sit around and mostly talk about how good or bad your dad's Where will you hang out with your friends, right? I mean, what's great about this is that, you know, it happens, somebody starts talking about it, but everybody clearly becomes very uncomfortable. And this will be a theme. Like, they'll have a scene where, you know, the straight guys, I'll talk about something real, like an honest emotional thing. And it will last for exactly 13 seconds before somebody goes, okay, that's

a no real thing. Let's go back into our, our heat then right, like, a whole never saying emotions ever again. It's good to fuck out of here. There's also, and I know this is supposed to be like, first act, they don't know what it means to be a dad but like one of them was like yeah I had a good dad I mean cheated on my mom but he was sorry right I'd like to revise my answer about whether or not I had a good dad I love that I think it was Kendrick who said so do you guys think that the that the dad lecture that the sheriff gave us was true and everybody basically just turns to the black guy who's like, um, yes, the script says that yes, I believe that crime is because of fatherlessness. And I should know because I'm one of them are us. I am a member of the black community.

Honestly, if Alex Kendrick had been standing behind him with his hand, like up his, the back of his shirt, it would have been less uncomfortable than that line reading is. Oh, there was also a moment where they're like talking about how divorce is this big tragedy in our society. And like one of them's like, yeah, but that's because, you know, we don't force everyone to stay in their awful relationships. So he says, quote, divorce only happens because it's an option. And I wrote in my notes, technically that's true.

Divorce does only happen because it's an option. That's right. That is correct. Oh, yeah, but he lets everyone know that he was just completely destroyed by not having a father. Yeah, which doesn't really make a lot of sense to me because like he's employed, he's supposedly good at his job, he's married with kids, which is something that he wants, he has friends. Yeah, no sign of a criminal record. Yeah, and yet somehow, dude's totally scarred.

Yeah, and it just doesn't work. I assure you, I am as damaged as the rest of the black community of which I am a part I'm not Alex Kendrick talking right now. Yeah, exactly. So we cut to hobbies and he got a call that he got a job. Most of this movie will be hobbies search for a job, but he has to walk to the construction site. And when he gets there, it's too late. They've already used all the construction pe... Apparently construction works on a first-, first served basis for jobs.

Well, and it's, yeah, it's literally, this is the moment where it's just like, come on, man, because, you know, he and his wife have kept saying, God will provide, the Lord will provide, and he gets a job, and then it's gone. Like, there is, it is so much, God is just toying with this man. He is job. There is a, there is definitely a bet between God and the devil going on with this guy. But here's the weird ass way this movie solves this, right? He's walking home,

bitching at God in Spanish. This movie isn't racist. And just as he finishes bitching Alex Kendrick's character is like, hey, are you Havi? Come here. Because in the last scene, Shane, as partner said, I'll send my buddy Havi over to help you with his shit. So to be clear, God's miracle is to tell Havi he's gotten a job, fake him out. And then as he's walking home, have him show up to a job where another guy with his name is supposed to be

so that he can get paid $150 to build a guy's shed. Yeah, I just could not figure. In this moment, it becomes clear later because they again, just literally say it out loud instead of showing it to us. But in this again, just literally say it out loud instead of showing it to us. But in this scene, I could not figure out what they thought they were presenting to us. Like what was the contention?

I couldn't figure out if he was the wrong Javier or if the other cop forgot to call his buddy Javier or maybe the other cop is actually an angel who somehow tries to tend to it. I literally could not figure out what they thought was supposed to be happening. Yeah, but he runs home and he tells his wife he's got a job that God is good and wants me to have stolen some guys gig and identity, I guess. Yeah.

And is this the scene where he gets to his house, but like we're, we cut to the house before he gets there. And his wife is reading to their two children. And the story that she's reading starts with this quote, this is a direct quote from the movie. I had to write it down. He gave her blue eyes and blonde wavy hair. He gave her a cute but devilish grin. What the fuck is this?

Story. Bright of Frankenstein. Who was out there building blonde chicks? I just thought man, yeah, it was, it was, it was a very creepy moment, but there you go. And can we just say, this children's bedroom is Jesus to the max. Like, they can't pack in more. There's like two crosses. There's a sign or something on the wall. I couldn't really make out what it was, but it says Jesus loves you.

Like, just in case you might miss the fact since all they talk about is Jesus, these people love Jesus. Yeah, totally. I think it literally had to do with the fact that these characters are Hispanic. Like, they were like, look, this is a Kendrick Brothers Christian movie watching audience. These people are speaking Spanish. If we do not constantly remind people that these are the goodens, they will turn off our movie. 100%. They will be off our movie. 100%.

They will be like, why aren't they climbing yet? What's happening? No, that's what the blacks are for in this movie. Oh my God. It's also interesting that like, you know, this Latino guy does take people's jobs. He does. He does keep, oh my God, he does. He will just steal jobs in this movie.

That's amazing. But you know what? Speaking of what the black people are up to, meanwhile over in the ghetto, little G, this is the boy who's interested in Nathan's daughter. Remember Nathan owns his daughter and his daughter's not allowed today. So the boy who's interested in her he is getting beat up To get into the gang and look I'm going to admit that I have a privileged childhood and not much exposure to gangs because a bunch of my notes were like There's no way they actually beat you up to let you into a gang But then I googled it apparently this is pretty standard for gangs. They beat you up. Oh, yeah

They were totally jumping him in that is a that's a normal thing. This seems like I have a notes for gang gangs. If you're listening and I know you are a huge fan of the pod Seems like a bad initiation process maybe come up with something gentler a little sharing circle. What about a pillow fight? Oh, pillow fight. Hazing, right? Yeah, it was there were like 25 guys beating up just this one kid. And I looked at it and was like, Oh, I get it. It's those long plaid shorts that he's wearing. Of course, that would be beating him up. But yes, they're jumping him into the gang. And he's, it was like, your family now. So let's go steal a car with a baby.

And then because truly this movie was written by the only person more clueless about gangs than me, they do a gang group hug to welcome him into the game. Definitely do. I looked that up. That's real too. All right. Well, I've got a gang to sign up for. So we're going to take a quick break while I write to the wire and let them know the realism they missed, but we'll be back in a bit for even more courageous. Hey podcast listener, you know, with this week's movie being about how to be a better husband and partner, we here at God off the movies thought we might give you a little advice of our own. Did you know that only 10% of couples split meal prep equally? That means some folks are doing a lot of the work.

And other folks are doing a lot of the eating. Psst! It's dudes! It's mostly dudes doing the later one. Which is why we'd like to introduce, apparently, 90% of you, to cooking an occasional f*** meal. That's right. Cooking an occasional f*** meal. That's right. Cooking an

occasional f*** meal. It takes work off your partner and it's a nice thing to do. But Eli, what if I don't know how to cook? Well Frank, that's why there's Hello Fresh. What's? Hello fresh. See that's the difference between a professional actor and a amateur everybody. Okay. Me and he just

pretenders to look around. Hello, Fresh! Cuts out stressful meal planning and grocery store trips. So you can enjoy cooking and get dinner on the table in just about 30 minutes or less. Short on time, Hello, Fresh offers 50 menu and market items each week, including ready to eat salads, sandwiches, and soups. So I could help with food stuff, even without cooking. That's true.

You could. I was subscribed to HelloFresh even before they were a sponsor. Helps me cook a couple of meals a week and share the burden of household. Ah, that sounds nice. It is nice, Dan. I'm a good man. Plus, HelloFresh is 28% cheaper than shopping at your local grocery store and 72% cheaper than a restaurant meal without sacrificing the

quality. All right, Eli. I'm in. How do I start cooking an occasional meal? Just go to hellofresh.com slash awful 14 and use the code awful 14 for up to 14 free meals plus free shipping. So I just go to hellofresh.com slash awfulful14 and use code Awful14 for up to 14 free meals plus free shipping.

That's right. Cooking an occasional meal. It's the least you can do. I mean, not sure. It's the least you can do is the catch phrase HelloFresh is really looking for. Well, they should. All right, I call together this very real, very accurate gang of drug dealers, Mimsy. Yeah.

Now that we've punched you many times, you're in the gang. Here's your welcome packet, and we're going to go through this together, and then have you sign the last page. Uh, it's about like, how to deal drugs and stuff? No, that will be your training. This is just an intro packet. Gang stuff. Yeah, you know, an introduction to corporate culture,

a little history of the gang. And of course, our safety and zero tolerance sexual harassment policy. The gang has a sexual harassment policy? That's right. A zero tolerance one. Damn right. Well, That's right, a zero tolerance one. Damn right. Well, that's good, I guess.

Now, why don't we get started on these videos? That tape says quiznos. Yeah, we use the same one as quiznos. We do. Is running a gang like running a quiznos? Surprisingly, yes. And we're back. So the next day, the cops are all meeting up for a buddy lunch.

Yeah, we're a bunch. And this is where they're going to realize the mistake about a hobby, because the hobby that Shane was supposed to send him is tall and hobby is fat. And Chahavius doesn't have a beard and the guy does, he doesn't have a beard. Basically, they're going to explain the joke of two scenes ago to us for a full six minutes.

And what they say is that Shane's buddy, Javier, has been in the hospital on life support this whole time, which is like, I was like, oh, I get it. God put one Javier literally hospitalized one because he felt bad about fucking with the other one. Yeah. That's how God works. That's, that feels right about the Christian God. Would you say those ways are mysterious? I would say they're dickish, but, uh, but yeah, mysterious is good. Yeah.

And I just wanted to point out that these guys are eating once again. Yeah. I was like, do restaurants sets cost less than police station sets? Because like, it's all food. It's all just them sitting around a table. All food. I think they thought that they could like get a free picnic table if they hired a craft services company. Based most of the script on that. So yeah, Alex heads home. And mind you, the upshot of the scene is that Alex suddenly realizes that he

has left an unvetted random Mexican unattended at his home. He has to run. He shows up the entire house is wearing a sombrero he drops to his knees like Charlton Eston. You bastards. But yeah, so he heads home and then we have the last scene again but with Havi which is like, are you the Havi air? Yes. Were you supposed to work here? Yes. No. Oh my god. It is the worst who's on first ever. Also, apparently, they've been working on this shed now for like seven weeks together. Seriously, like just buy one at home depot, like a normal person. No, he needs a handcrafted shed that takes six months and two men working on it. Yeah. So meanwhile, guy who got jumped little G, he's here to pick up Nathan's daughter.

Oh, no. Yeah. And he's a totally believable new gang member in his yellow polo and nice jeans. Cause, you know, if they dressed him to urban, none of the carons would care about his redemption story. It's as though the script is like, you never know which one is a gang member. I mean, it's the back one. Don't get us wrong.

It's obviously the black one, but they let gang members buy polo shirts. And he shows up. Remember last time we saw this character, he was getting the absolute shit beat out of him by like 25 people and his girlfriend or Want to be girlfriend is like hey, what happened to you? And he's like oh, I was just hanging out with some friends I don't want anyone to be like yeah, we were playing Beat the shit out of me look at my car. I'm a nice car. You see my nice car I got yeah, and then Jade's dad Nathan comes out and is like, nah, no, you can't date her, blah, blah, blah. And pulls this whole, basically just, you know,

the kids like, hey, I just came to see if Jade wanted to go out to eat with me. And he's like, well, in this house, we believe in Jesus. So people with vaginas aren't allowed to think for themselves. So from now on, you go through me. It's, it is the shitty dad. Nobody talks to my daughter without permission seen from the shitty dad's perspective. It's yeah, he's the hero in this one. And what's amazing

is I thought this was awful. I was I was appalled by this. I had no idea how much worse this was going to get. Oh, to see this is the mildest level of daughter ownership. This character will display. Yeah. It's impressive. Yeah. They go hard. But yeah, little G, he is rightfully scared away. So meanwhile, back at Alex's place, he and Javier are having a heart to heart about how they don't trust the public school system. Well, yeah, I mean, this is how you know that have yours a real Christian, right? Yeah. I think why wouldn't he trust the education system that's going to give his kids a leg up in this country, you know? Right. Like who could possibly want a good foundation in STEM? But instead, yes, like a good Christian, his wife is homeschooling the kids.

Well, and that's the thing is all that this movie talks about is like how desperate they are for Harvey to have work. These kids are both of school age. If he sent his kids to school, his wife could also have a job. Right. But it is more important to this movie that he literally star.

Well, and his kids could have meals. Like there's a, there are resources for them that they're like, nah, fuck that. Jesus says don't. Yeah, Jesus says don't. There's also good news here. Alex has gotten him job at the thread factory. He's literally like, hey, you know that thread factory

over on Clark? Oh, yeah, that famous thread factory. Why the fuck would I know about a thread factory? Like does everybody just know all of the factories in the town? Don't you know all the factories within a 20 to 45 mile radius of your house? You must not be on a serious job, but if you don't, yeah, totally. on a serious job, but if you don't, yeah, totally. But then a plot of a different movie interrupts this movie. Emily little dancing daughter, she was hit by a drunk driver and a driving range. I don't know where she's dead. She's dead now. She's dead. It would have been 100% in character for God in this movie to have this guy tell hovier that he's gonna get him my full time job and then be interrupted by his daughter dying and totally forget about it and then hobbies like that the cold

but who shows up in the thread factory that day the hobby from the other job. Yeah, I'm not a hospital. Oh. God's just doing a little shell game where he's, where's the job? Is it under here? No. Should I only create an enough universal jobs for one hobby? I've got to keep shuffling this thing. Right. So we cut over to the whole and strings hospital,

which always means the kid is dead in the movies, right? Oh, yeah. And also Alex Kendrick's who we've established is not a good actor. He runs into the hospital. His wife's there. They embrace and immediately his eyes seem to dart around the room with the look that says does anybody have any snacks? It does look like he's looking for something. So now we cut over to the funeral and this funeral speech is fucking incredible. Look, we have long talked on the show that if you're in the business of religion, dead child is the time to shut up and really hope that everyone comes back at Christmas. But this priest is going for it. He's like, okay, so. I feel like I should shut up, right?

Cause I'm the talker for the killing little girl guy. I don't really have much here, but can a pitchy on Jesus? He starts his Jesus, pitchy and I was like, dude, a car just exploded on your lot. Do not talk about financing options, but he's going for it. He is going for it. Yeah, his whole pitch, I mean, it's a standard Christian pitch death is painful, but Jesus is alive. So you're all supposed to rejoice. Why aren't you rejoicing?

You all seem not to believe enough in Jesus. If you're sad about this little girl dying, she's actually in paradise. This is a good thing. You're supposed to be happy. I don't pay any taxes. But then we cut to them in their house and there's these here's how we know how sad Alex Kendrick's character is. He's sitting on the floor. Yeah, that's how sad he is. Yeah. It's a very meaningful moment. Tell me, no, it's real. And they have a like heart to heart like, oh, what are we going to do now that our daughter is dead? And they have this unintentionally funny moment. He goes, I'm not a father anymore.

And she's like, you are. You have another kid. And he then again, this is supposed to be very meaningful. Like he runs into his son's room. And he's like, I is supposed to be very meaningful like he runs into his son's room and he's like, I'm here for you son, but what it actually seems like is he's like, Oh, shit, I have a father nice. I'm going to go hang out with my living kid, if you don't mind. I don't know why they include this.

He unlocks the son's door like the door is locked and he unlocks the son's door. And I will say if this scene was realistic, he absolutely would have walked in on this teenage son yankin it. Okay. This is a teenage boy in the door was locked. We know why. Well, and also dad breaks into his son's room because what a teenager needs when he's grieving is a breach of trust and a violation of privacy.

That's really what a good father would do. And also he doesn't have anything to say. It's not like he comes and he's like, son, I want you to know I love you. And we're gonna make it through this together. He breaks into his son's room and violates his trust so he can be like, Sup, you mad about your dead sister.

Yeah, totally. And the kids just like, everyone just keeps saying the same thing over and over. It's almost like all of these religious platitudes don't even help. And then the last thing is I just have to touch on this. He goes, why did we let her go to that party? Yeah, because eight-year-old birthday parties are the devil. That's what we've learned. learned is not to let your kid. You got a 70% chance of that shit ending in a drunk driving accident.

That's just how those work. In a movie, yep, absolutely. So now we cut over to him meeting with the pastor to ask, you know, what the fuck? And this scene, it's so careful, right? Because they're dealing with something that's a's so careful, right? Because they're dealing with something that's a pretty universal experience, right? Not everyone loses a child, but everyone's experienced grief

and certainly everyone will experience grief. So this scene is just like so, Pastor, you're, you're whole things bullshit. You got anything good for this? Because it's literally your only job and the pastor's like, ah, yeah, have you tried the natural process of grieving and then giving God the credit when you feel better? Yeah, that's basically it. This was the scene by the way where I checked the timeline on the movie and realized I was

only halfway through. A broke me in ways that I can't actually describe. But also I was like, wait, you look, if you're going to kill a kid, you do it in the first half, the first third of the movie or the last little bit of the movie, you never kill a, how do you kill a kid in the middle of the movie? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, this movie will be about four or five other things before the end of this movie. This movie has literally no, it is six different movies and it keeps forgetting which one and going to the next one. Well, and at this point in the movie, Dan, you're looking

at the clock. I'm just going, where are the gangs? Please bring back the gangs. Right, and it has become entirely clear that these guys are not police officers. We have lost that for a long, long time ago. And it's also this scene where I started suspect that this actually isn't a movie. It's a two hour excuse to talk about God. Like that's it.

That's it. Mm-hmm. That was the original screenplay before courageous movie. It's a two hour excuse to talk about God. Like that's, yeah, that's it. Yeah. That was the original screenplay before courageous was two hour excuse to talk about God. Oh, so now we cut to six weeks later for, for no reason. Yeah. Right. There's a, he's been studying how to be a Christian dad, apparently, in these last six weeks. Yeah. Literally, he's been diving into his, his Bible this whole time and he's, he's talking to his wife and he's like, there's so much in scripture. I don't know if he's talking to his wife.

I don't remember who he's talking to, but it's just like, there's so much in scripture about being a father. Like, did you know that if our son sees me naked, I'm supposed to curse his children forever? And I have to cut off the tip of his penis. Hell, God could even command me to kill him. Thank goodness our daughter died. You don't even want to know when I was supposed to do with her.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, but he's not sure he can run five miles. And, um, yeah, I don't think he could run five miles either. Yeah. But also, that's confusing. Confusing kilometers for miles, which I love. And it's clear, like the kid is talking about kilometers and

the dad's like, I don't run kilometers. I only run miles like a man. I'm an American god. I'm a mouse. None of those pansy asked kilometers. He just insists running his five miles on the wrong side of the road gets hit by an oncoming traffic. America. So he checks him with his son. They make some small talk. Buy

him some running shoes. And now it's time for Havis right along. The weirdest direction this movie could take. Oh my God. Hey, you remember how this movie was about a dead child seconds ago? Now it's gonna do a fun, comedy bit about Havi coming on their cop job. Well, and it's so, like the screenwriters obviously feel the need to explain that this Mexican has is fine. So they give him a line where he's like,

wow, this is the first time I've been in the back of a police car. I've never done that. It was just, it was a very odd, very clear moment. Right. So they're supposed to be getting lunch, but then they get a call to go do cop stuff. And they, instead of being like, hey, Havi, we have to go do cop stuff. They pull up and leave H Harvey in the car like irresponsible dog

owners. Yes. A hundred percent. They don't even crack the windows. Come on, guys. Yeah, just make Harvey walk home. He's been all over town on foot. We know this, right? Like call his wife, come get him, call a cab, have him wait there and come back and get him. But they arrest us over because otherwise something might happen in this movie. And the comedy bit that the movie decides to do at this point is they put this criminal in the back seat with Harvey and Harvey pretends to be a dangerous gang leader. Yeah. To scare him into talk.

This is no way. Yeah, it is, I mean, like literally they put this six foot two wall of muscles into the backseat of a car with Javier. And they, you know, they do a setup beforehand. They're like, Hey, we're going to put you in here. If he threatens to hurt you, you just tell us because he's the most dangerous guy in the world. And they put this guy in.

Yeah, he's going gonna be terrified of Javier who looks like a play school weeble wobble in a red polo shirt. It is not threatening. Yeah, I mean, this is also, look, it's a good comedy beat, credit where credits do. It's also torture and illegal, but it's a good performance. Yeah, literally, like they make it, you know, the setup is is cute and all,

but they're putting a hardened terrifying criminal in the back seat with their buddy. Yeah. What are they thinking? Yeah. So that night he's telling the family about how funny that was, how funny the last scene was, which again, in school, they always they always teach you to reflect on how funny the last scene was in your comedy, right? When I was like, nope, it wasn't funny, sorry. Yeah, it's literally the moment where they're trying to convince the audience that what they just witnessed was acceptable. It was good. This is also where they say that they've adopted Havi in a way.

Oh God. Like a little mascot. Yeah. It's just horrible. I wrote, he's like a pet. Okay, Omni Man. Well, and like they're sitting there and the wife is like, oh, they're just so great.

And they brought, Havi's wife brought over three meals and I was like, what was that like three tortillas? I know her cooking. Sorry, the rice and beans was for the kids, you get a tortilla. And they have this weird moment. It doesn't really matter to the movie, but we have this weird moment where dad, Alex is like, I think everything's going to be all right. And the brother's just like, I wish it had been a better brother. And I wanted so badly for Alex, the turn to him and be like, Dylan, you're bumming everyone out at dinner, okay? We're talking about my fun hate crimes I committed at work today. Yeah, it was lit. It was weird. They had the, the moment started with, with them basically being like, wow, look, we're all basically over the daughter's

death. See, look, we're fine. and then the kid ruins it. Yeah. Well and Seriously, he's a bad brother. He just needs to do a little brother research in the Bible. I'm sure there's some good tips in there. I just like that they all crowd around the the kid the family's crying and then the Alex Kendrick's line is You're my son. Don't you ever forget that. You were worried that he was gonna forget that you're his dad.

Yeah, it's a very weird thing. So the next day, Alex has gathered all his cop buddies together to tell them what the movie is about now. And the movie is about, guys, please correct me if I'm wrong on this. The movie is now about, he has created a good dad resolution and he would like to sign it and have them hold him accountable to it. Yeah, we are deep into this movie and it does turn out that this is the plot that they actually think their

movies about. But they hear about that. And instead of being like, Hey, it's weird that you wrote a resolution for what kind of dad you want to be instead of just being a good dad, they're like, Holy shit, can we get in on this too? Right. Two inches response is like, I don't know, man, this is heavy. This is some serious shit. I don't know if you're ready for this shit. Yeah, I wrote my notes. No, this is mine. I printed it out on fucking Oax board and I fucking mean it.

And it's amazing. We never see anything that's on this piece of paper. They never make it clear to us what the resolution to make you a good dad actually is. It's just this mystery paper that they have. So now we cut over to Nathan's house. He's telling his wife that he wants to sign the parenting pledge and she's like, oh, that's a great idea. But we should do it in a fancier and much more public way. Oh, she is into it. She is like, no, you are not going to sign just this thing. We are going to print it. We are going to have it done on a print. We're going to have a professional printer do it. It's going to be framed and hung on the wall. And you're going to have to have a

ceremony wearing robes surrounded by candlelight and Gregorian chant. Everybody knows that's how you do this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it is really weird that she knows about these resolutions, these father resolutions, right? And like, there's clearly ways to do it. They must be on parchment. They must hang on the wall. Yeah. She's got the real legal work on how to officially do a bad day. Can we get papyrus for this? Is that the thing that we could do? Can we chisel it into stone? So the next day, he's having a chat with Rookie Cop. Remember Rookie Cop?

He was a Rookie and they were mad at him and turns out he's already a father. He's a deadbeat dad. And he asked for an abortion. Yeah. So like, he is the worst. Yeah. And also earlier in the film, he was the one who was like,

Hey, not everybody believes in Jesus. He didn't say he didn't, but like I think we're supposed to believe that he's the bad one. Yeah, he might be an atheist. You never know. Now, seriously, he's a piece of shit. Now, I think this kid's better off, right? Yeah, definitely, definitely better off without him.

But of course, you know, when you find out that a close friend of yours has abandoned a child and provided no support to that child's mother, that's the time to pitch them to change their religion to yours. Yeah, 100%. Which is exactly what Nathan does. We also get some problem of evil here, right, where he's like, God's going to, you and I are going to stand in front of God and God's gonna do what good judges do.

And I wrote my notes, send people to burn and fire forever because I don't know any good judges that do that. Yeah. Most good judges will realize that there is a limit to how long someone needs to be punished for pretty much anything. And they have this great moment where Rookie, Rookie's like, well, you know, I'm a good person. And he's like, well, let me put it to you this way. If someone murdered your mother,

oh, God, yeah, okay, for the judge to let him go free because he was a good person. And one, that's not how that works. But also judges do actually take into consideration the good stuff you do all the time. That's like a major element of what judges are there for. I mean, for white guys. Well, yeah, maybe Nathan doesn't understand that because he's a person of color. I just like, Nathan eventually looks him deep in the eye and he says, do you understand what I'm telling you about Jesus? And I was like, uh, because basically, what he had started to say was, you're going to be judged,

but Jesus took your punishment upon himself. So that's good, but you're still going to be judged. So you got to do good things. Do you understand what I'm telling you? And I was like, not really, because it sounds like you're super contradicting yourself. Do you understand what I'm telling you? And I was like, not really, because it sounds like you're super contradicting yourself. Do you understand what you're telling me? Ha, ha, ha, ha.

And I have to point out, Frank, I love your notes here because they are just logging for the storyline of moments past just like, where are the gangs? Wasn't that a storyline? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Did I just want it to be a storyline because these cops suck so much. Well, I'm also sitting

here and I'm just like thinking like this movie makes me want to defund the police. Especially these police. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're out of them. Let's start with them first. Yeah. And now it's time, of course, for the post mortem daddy daughter dance. Oh, God. Yeah. As Dan already informed us, they will be choosing a worse song for this dance than the original one. Yeah. Just like if you genetically engineered someone to create the worst music imaginable, this

would this is what would come of it. Yeah. Well, yeah. And he's like, pulling up to that same parking lot. So it's like, where the one where his daughter got out in dance and it of it. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, and he's like pulling up to that same parking lot. So it's like where the one where his daughter got out in dance. And it's like, oh, no. Oh, no. Is he going to dance?

No, please don't let him dance. Oh, Christ, he's going to dance. He's actually going to dance. Oh, no, this is so much worse than I feared. Gangs, please. Yes. I logged for the gang to roll up and just be like, okay, it's doing weird shit. You know what I'm doing?

Okay. I got to talk about the hand position. So here's the thing. During the daughter solo dance, she was like, you just put your hand out and then your other hand out like this, except his daughter is much shorter than him. So he's got his hand right in front of his crotch. Yeah. As he sways back and forth with his eyes closed, what I'm saying is this scene would be

banned from many vids, my friend. It would not meet the quality of many vids. Also a man swaying back and forth with his hand on his crotch, he would get him called on him. He would have called it instantly be called. Nathan just shows up. Yeah, the bank called. Sorry, you gotta stop dancing when you're dead. Yeah.

And then he literally raises his arms up. He looks to the sky because that's where Jesus lives. And he says, Lord, can you get a message to my daughter? What's your number? Can I, I'll just text you what to tell her? Is it, can I just, is that cool? The afterlife repercussions of that being true are a stop. Hello, Kelly or whatever the fucking name is. I know you're dead and eight, but your dad wants you to know he went to that gas station parking lot and he danced to a fucking, he fucking, he should news boys record for you.

Anyways, I'll let you get back to your forever in paradise. Yeah, exactly. And what's nice is we cut to the clouds, tenderly agreeing to send her the message. I wanted them to form like a thumbs up emoji for it. Oh, we're just nod gently at him. Yeah. So we get a quick scene of Harvey getting ready. And I only point out this scene because Harvey is like never worn a suit before.

And he says, he looks into the mirror and he says, I feel like a rich man. Except he is wearing the cheapest thing they could offer you at the dumpster behind menswear house. It is literally, and let me tell you something, no man in the history of fashion ever went out and got his first suit and chose a butter yellow button down shirt to go with it. Like you choose your crisp white shirt, period. That is how you do it. Oh, and also his wife says something, she says, oh, we're finally doing okay.

And he's like, shut up, shut up. You're gonna make me cry in front of the kids. I guess it's very clear. A good father would never let his children see him cry. He has three emotions, happy, angry, and drinking alone. You got that three. It's such a weird moment, Ruiner, because he's like, don't make me cry in front of the children. I want to be like, I would built you in the mouth while we're killing this

moment. So now we cut to the weird ceremony they invented. And they've got a guy who apparently attends these all the times. He's like, I guess one of those fatherhood resolution ceremonies. And this is okay. What they have done, we will never see what was on that paper. I assume that they read it because what they've done is they've taken the wedding vows. Yeah. It feels like a wedding. It's 100% of the word.

Yeah. And they've inserted all the jingoistic bullshit that I have to keep a street face during all cultures, during all ceremonies, right? They got protect and serve. They've got to die for you, like Jesus died for me. As for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. It's like every stupid thing a man says, the pledge.

Yeah. I mean, they're clearly marrying Jesus here, right? Like, it's a, it's a Jesus marrying ceremony. I didn't know that those existed, but that's clearly what this is. Foradult men are marrying Jesus clearly not in a gay way. Yeah. And yet telling Sheriff Daddy that you love him

is somehow wrong. Like, I don't, I don Like I don't make no sense. This movie needs to pick a side. And they keep cutting to each of these guys saying a different thing. And Alex Kendrick at one point is like, I will teach my son to love God with all his heart and turn my back on him forever if he should prove to be gay, trans or liberal. Yeah. And then, okay, then the guy who's the head of it is like, I have a warning for each of you

and I was like, oh, please be part of the gang. Right? He's just like, I pulled out double loocies. Never fuck with the six street blues. But no, his warning is that now that they've made this promise to be good dads to God, God will be mad extra at them if they suck. Yeah. He also, he also at one point said, you will need courage, courage, courage. He said it three times in the hopes that we would finally understand that the title of this movie isn't about being a cop. Oh, absolutely.

All right. Well, this movie that was about cops and a dead kid is now about dad pledges. So let me see if I can give back three of the hard sell here. Will these cops dad the way Jesus wants them to? Will one of them propose to his daughter? What did the casting posts for the gang members look like? And is of them propose to his daughter? What did the casting posts for the gang members look like? And is there a way to obtain them? Find out the answers to these questions and more when we return for the insanely hybrid conclusion of Courageous.

I am so sorry about spilling that on you, Frank. It's fine. I just... Do you... Do you have a change of clothes? Yeah, you are so. Yeah, I'm sure. No one needs to have plenty of stuff around here. Oh, how about this? It's a Hefty shirt. And it says, not on this buffet table. Is that a reference to something?

I'm honestly not sure because it could be an 80's show he likes, but sometimes he eats a big thing and they give him a shirt when he does it so Could be that How about this you can have one of Noah's old man tank tops? Where did he get these? Oh, he gets him from the dumpster behind the CVS I guess the plastic from the bag Sometimes leeches into the fabrics so they're not good anymore. Yeah, I can see that Eli

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shirt worth wearing. Awesome, guys. Sorry, don't have any here. So what about your clothes? Oh, I have a bunch of sassy t shirts and pug sweaters. I'll take a pug sweater, I guess. Nice. It'll look good on you. Yeah. Hey, Frank, Dan. Yes, yes, Eli. You know, this week's movie is got me thinking. Now that I'm a dad about the kind of dad I want to be.

Jesus. So I wrote this pledge. It's from my heart, you know. And I was just thinking maybe we could all sign it together Yeah, I'm not a father though. Yeah neither am I well, you know guys just in case we could sign it It's not gonna happen. It's very unlikely extremely unlikely Today I pledge okay, he's going anyway to be the kind of father I want to be. In my house, we will have tissues, not just toilet paper,

because it's weird to ask people to go into your bathroom when they want to blow their nose. We will figure out the tip in my home by moving the dot over, doubling, and then rounding up. Okay, well, that's a good one at least. If we enjoy a television show, we will spend a maximum of two minutes talking about it to people who have never seen that show.

And that show will never be supernatural. What's wrong with supernatural? Now, he watched some on a plane and he's been on a kick. When we play video games with a child in my house, we will let them win the first time. And then, we will beat them all subsequent times after that. And above all, we will never, ever zip line. What's wrong with zip lining? No, he doesn't talk about it.

I don't want to talk about it. Tsk, tsk, tsk. And we're back. And we're going to cut to that evening, where Rookie is writing that lady he knocked up a letter. Oh my God, I was just like, lady, get a restraining order. Right? Right. That's what they're for. He sends her like a check, right? He sends her a $500 check and I'm like, send the money back. It comes with major strings attached, like,

get out of this. I was just imagining that the letter was like dear Amanda remember when we fucked that one time can you send nude Anyway, how's your kid? I was your kid. Is she all messed up? I heard she's all ruined. She on heroin yet Earlier in the movie we proposed and judging by her the ex's Uniform that she is wearing when she gets his letter, I couldn't figure out what it was. Is she a housekeeper at a grocery store? She had a tugboat stewardess. I could not figure out what that was. She's a maid in an empire state building.

It's very strange. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, he talks about himself so fucking much in this letter. This is a letter he is writing to the woman he abandoned with his child and he's like, Hey, how am I doing? You're probably wondering, I'm great. I'm a cop. Being a cop is hard. Oh, being a cop is so hard. I'm dating God now. Anyways, being a cop is hard. If you'd like to let me back into my daughter's life now that I've literally skipped the most difficult parts and left you financially bereft here is the down payment on a jet ski I'm your daughter's dad again. Yeah, and what I know that they love this

narrative the Christianity turns you into some amazing person, but I promise you, no man in history has ever converted to Jesus and then voluntarily just started paying child support. Yeah. I was gonna say no man has ever voluntarily started paying child support, but the Jesus thing is true too. Yeah. It was literally just the letters like, I just want to be a part of her life. You know, for like six months, maybe then it all feels super weird and burdensome and

I'll probably bail. That's his post script. And so now Nathan is visiting his dad. And here's what they're trying to do, right? And Frank, I'm sure they taught you this in film school. They're trying to do that thing where it's a shot, reverse shot, and in the reverse shot you realize they're talking to a grave. Oh, yeah.

But they're too stupid to realize that you don't have the character look down because then either it's a grave or your dad is a little person which would arguably be a fucking amazing twist. You might as well. Yeah. I mean, none of the movie has really made any sense before you might as well. Yeah. I mean, none of the movie has really made any sense before. You might as well. I just like that he's talking to a headstone,

but he's prepared a written statement. Dude, I'm pretty sure your dead dad won't care if you bumble around a little bit getting to the point. Yeah. Was it your dad's gonna interrupt you as you read to his grave? Dad, let me get through this, okay. He also, and I see that there's some agreement

in our notes here. He also strongly hints to his dead dad that he might be in hell. Yeah, a hundred, dear dead father, you sucked. Jesus is probably gonna send you to hell. Yep, glad I came, glad I came. Good job. Good game, everybody.

He says, I hope you accepted Jesus in which case I'll get to see you face to face in heaven. And if not, oh well, like it's just that weird moment. So Alex runs with his son. We have a moment where him and his son do some bonding. According to the IMDB trivia, This scene was improvised in between takes. Wow. By the way, Alex Kendra's sweat marks, you know, it's that thing where, you know, the wardrobe has gone with a spray bottle and sprayed his around his neck with sweat or whatever. There is zero chance that if that man was actually sweating that much, that he wouldn't also have significant underboob sweat.

Absolutely. Yeah, the underboob CGI team that had to remove the underboot sweat, 90% of this film's budget. Yeah. All right. Now, maybe you're thinking to yourself, okay, this movie has had three plots so far, but could it have another? Well, good luck because Havi has been called into

his boss's office at the thread factory. He's being offered. He's being offered a promotion, but only if he's willing to lie about how much thread comes in. Yeah, it was literally like the most obvious quote integrity test you can imagine, but they're playing it up like it's super real. I just have to say I would have been so fucking happy if they had fired him in that scene. It would have been the happiest you can make me. It's more right for the film. I'm just saying. Well, I might take on this whole thing was I was like, what is this garment factory, right? Are cops stealing inventory and then smuggling it out through the garment factory and then selling it to the gangs? Is that how we get to the gangs

again? Because I want to see the gangs again. I'm ready. Well, and they ask hobby. They're like, uh, yeah, well, I'm going to need you to be a team player here when there are 17 crates. You just say there's 16 and I just thought You know all my friends are cops, right? Broling I'm a bad choice for this. Well, and do we finally get to see white people commit crimes in this little universe? Right, right. I think that's probably not where this is going, but like just for now, I the script feels a little more realistic. And can I just say, look, yes, Stan is right. This is going to turn out to be a test, which is both cruel, insane and illegal. There are no words for how hard I would fail this test. And for how hard I did fail this test. I had not this a much more directly illegal thing happened to me at a job where I immediately

began to do the crime that the manager had to touch and do. And he was like, dude, you're doing way too much of that crime. And I was like, you said I could do the crime. And he was like, I said you could do a little bit of crime. You did way too much crime. You're fired. And I was like, well, I don you could do a little bit of crime. You did way too much crime. You're fired. And I was like, well, I don't want to work at your chocolate restaurant. Anyways, anyways, perhaps too much information Andrew's going to have to go through that one. Okay. So I know what you're thinking. Okay. But is that enough plots? No, there's still more plots

to add to the last 24 minutes of this fucking movie. So meanwhile, over at the station, Alex Kendrick is missing some bags of drugs. Yeah, literally the inventory guy in what is very clearly a very realistic conversation. The inventory guy is like, hey, good job bringing in those seven bags of drugs the other day. He's like seven bags. We only brought, we were supposed to bring in eight bags of drugs and he's like, well, it's like that other time when you brought in 12 bags of drugs. And he's like 12 bags. I thought we were supposed to bring in 14 bags. It's literally that obvious. It's crazy. Yeah. So he goes to the, his boss and he's like, yes, hi, I'm here to a title like a little

bitch. And his chief is like, you sure you want to title like a little bitch and he's like, yeah, it's a Christian movie. So I'm going to a title like. Yeah, this goes really well for cops all the time, right? That's what we do, isn't it? Yeah. If there's anything we know, cops are known for it's holding their fellow officers responsible.

Right. Exactly. for it's holding their fellow officers responsible. Right, exactly. I literally, I couldn't believe it. We literally, two scandals in two scenes, we're literally an hour and a half into this movie and they're finally starting the movie. I was like, this is okay. They're just starting. Right, it's like they were starting a Marvel universe, right?

If this had just ended and they'd expanded out, you know, Havi and the multiverse of madness, okay. I would have understood. So meanwhile, over at Havi's house, his wife is telling him not to be a little bitch in what is one of my favorite scenes of the movie. Yeah, literally, hey, Havi, you're finally making enough money to buy ill-fitting Walmart suits. Don't give that up.

But I love that he's got this bag in fourth with the wife, where she's like, Havi, just fucking lie, it's an inventory for him. He's the owner of the building. It's his fucking threat. He could take it out and fucking if he wants to. He's the owner of the factory, just lie. And he's like, no, a man cannot lie on his inventory form.

It is his honor. So now Alex is gonna confront his partner, Shane, who's the one who's been stealing the drugs. And again, as earlier we had the bad dad seen from the bad dad perspective. Now we're gonna have the cop snitch scene from the cop snitch perspective. Oh my God.

And how clear is it, by the way, that what he's really mad about is that Shane didn't even offer to let him get his beak right? This is a very obvious. Yeah, we're going to turn you in because, dude, hook a guy up. Yeah. There's a code. Well, and like, I'm sorry, like the scene, I was like, you know, this is cops holding each other accountable.

Like I actually can't make fun of that. That's how it should be. Yeah. Like I've got nothing to say to mock that at all. Like it's good. Well done. But again, reason number 23 why this movie is not even related to reality. Yeah, fair enough.

But sure enough, Harvey heads into the factory and he tells the boss, I'm afraid I just can't do that. And the boss has this like, may I shake your hand? You asked my incredibly dickish test. Yeah, oh my God. Oh, Havi, you do not want to work for this guy, right? Like this bullshit test.

It's kind of management style that creates really toxic work environments. He's starting out on a lie. Also, a well-run company would have the proper controls and checks in place that they wouldn't have to trust you. Employees should never be put in that kind of position. Run, hobby, run. These are bad managers and most likely Christians.

And also, is this like Willy Wonka? Is Havi about to win the garment factory? Yes. Yeah, he's about to be, they put him through like this emotional torture so that he's a shift manager position. They're like, all right, Havi, an extra $1.25 an hour and people call out on you in two days notice, enjoy. You may be.

Yeah, exactly. We also learn as they're congratulating him that six other guys failed the test. Oh my God. Where are those scenes where some guys just like, I'm gonna need you to, you got it. I'm fucking steal a shit ton of thread. You know, we could be running coke through here.

You gotta warehouse. It was literally like, well done, Havi here. After six times, I was starting to wonder if this psychological trauma we were inflicting on people was ever going to pan out. And he calls the wife to tell you the good news, except she had told him in the last scene, called me if you get fired. And I wanted so badly for her to kill herself without answering the phone. I can't take it anymore. Blah, she's commit sepicoom. She is so close to that. She is in a panic. It's like, damn it, hobby. We had a code. You were supposed to call if you were fired.

Why did you put me through that? I'm fucking traumatized over here. But don't worry, honey. Now you get a raise is my wife. You're best, my test. And he is the happiest thread worker of all. Yes. So now Alex is going to confront his partner. We see the partner like smuggling some drugs in. Obviously, Alex has turned him in. And this is all a setup. But the partner is going to smuggle some crack out of these bags. But I just have to talk about this crack for a second. It is, it is cotton candy that they squeezed in the desperate hopes. It would look anything like crack. Yeah. Somebody was like, Hey, is it enough if we just try to clump some flour together? Is that, does that look like?

I don't know. Oh, yeah. All I want is to sell this props department weed for the rest of my life. I'm millionaire. Just a bunch of basil leaves in a bag. Yeah. Yeah, he confronts him. He's like, you signed the daddy pledge and the daddy pledge included not embezzling drug evidence, I guess. Yeah, exactly.

Also, when he confronts him, the partner Shane goes, I can't make it on 36 grand a year. What is it to me if I need to make an extra thousand? Dude, if you're selling crack and only making an extra thousand dollars a month, something is going to your margins are off my man. You are good. Yeah. The gang members are like, this cop is giving a shit back to us for fucking free, man. All right, I'll give you back this kilo of cocaine, but it's gonna cost you big $100 I

Don't know man. Can we do it for 50? Okay, I'll take 50 40 what? Okay, I Think he forgot that he signed that pledge where he's doubly accountable for everything. Yeah. And like why is he out doing anything? There's double punishment. Don't do that. You're gonna go to hell twice, man. Yeah, so he gets arrested and then we get this weird scene where there's like a montage of Alex telling his family like oh, yeah yeah, no, I sent your dad to jail for 15 years.

And they're nodding like we understand you had to. Yeah, totally. We also see rookie having dinner with the girl he knocked up. Obviously talking about himself again, like, I can't read his lips and there's no spoken dialogue, but he is very obviously called a woman. He abandoned with a child to be like, yes, so another thing I've really learned since I started this intramural softball league is. Yeah. And can there be a creepier site than four men praying together in a room. Oh, I'm glad you asked Daniel for now. It is time for the daughter daddy date. Oh

God, it is terrifying. So Nathan has taken his daughter to an ace restaurant. He orders a filet medium well, which is already a ruinous experience. Yeah. And the daughter's like, wow, this is a really nice place, you know, in a Marriott hotel ballroom sort of way. This is the nicest place to have a high school prom. This side of the Mason Dixon line. But he brought her here and let me just say, if you watch this scene on mute, it is a much older man proposing to a much younger woman. Very, very much like literally you would not be able to distinguish this from that.

That is what this is. And also if you don't watch it on mute, that's kind of what this is. Yeah, it's also that too. What this is. He is there to tell her that she's beautiful and he's here to propose a deal. This is actually the deal. You give me control over your love life permanently. And in return, I will eventually say yes to the right man that I decide for you.

And the future husband has to like love God more than you, sweetheart. Yeah. Literally. He says, I want that man to love God more than anything. Like, we more than he loves. Yeah, just creepy. So creepy. And they mark the occasion with an engagement ring, which he says, you will wear this until you replace it with your wedding ring.

And I've also prepared your dowry. There's some cotton pants and a crate over there. And if you be good, maybe we'll throw an account. I was going to say he walks over a goat. I'm going to offer this to the right man. That's right. Oh, it's so weird. And then we cut to her and bed like happily staring at her daddy forever ring.

It's a. Yeah, it's a good, it's a very good thing that he raised her not to have good taste in jewelry because that thing is idiot. Yeah. No, kids, it's not every kiss begins with care. So now Alex goes over visits his partner that he rats out and this is the scene that they wrote in the movie for Shane to apologize to him. Right, because crooked cops almost always do really good introspection just like literally after a couple days in jail, right? Super normal for them to take full responsibility for their acts pretty much immediately. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So he's like, yeah, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I made you tell on me for stealing drugs. And Alex Kendrick is like, I forgive you. Yeah. And then he says, and tell me if I'm wrong in this, he says, since you sent me to jail,

will you be my son's father now? Yeah, he's literally like, you're my kid's dad too. You have to be, you signed the thing, you have to. No takes, he's back, he's, and Alex Kendrick, of course, heroically agrees to. A grace. I really wanted him to say no. It's just like, I'm really doing my own kid right now. Yeah, dude, I just, I just lost a kid. I couldn't go through that again. I know I'm not going to do that. And he clearly couldn't handle too. Right?

But have no fear. It's the last scene of the movie, which means we're going to get back to those gang members. Frank, they brought the gangs back for you. Oh my God. I'm so excited. Literally, we had all forgotten about them entirely, including the screenwriter. Yeah. So they're riding around. The daughters love interest is with them and head gang member, the one who tried to steal the car at the beginning. Remember him?

He announces to just the car at large that he has $40,000 and two kilos of drugs in the car right now. Yep. And he's driving around in a green Cadillac with a broken tail light. Yep. This is smart. Yeah. What's fun? And young gang nerd that was jumped into the gang is shocked, shocked to learn that the

other guys in the car are criminals. This is the first time he's figured it out. I'm sorry. I thought we were for me a gang to do community service. Are you guys into dross? Yeah. It's literally everything is a man.

I got 40 stacks in the back. You what? Yeah, man. I got two kilos. What? What is happening? I was not signing up for this. This is very uncomfortable for me. I was told this was a Christian. I need a group. So they just, this is the gang members thing. They get pulled over by the cops because

they have their tail light out. Well, and what's funny is that like, what's really happening it, the tail light thing they threw in, I'm sure I'm guessing they filmed that that line in post just because I'm sure Alex Kendrick thought it was enough to just be like, we got a we got a poll so these guys over. There are black guys in a cat. Yeah, the original line, Nathan, the actor plays Nathan, rewrote the line from there, like guys in a car, too. They have a tail light out. Yeah, exactly. So the gang members plan Nathan has pulled them over is to murder Nathan when he approaches the side of their car to speak to them about the tail light.

Right. And to do this, he pulls out of his pants, a shotgun. Yeah. He had a full size shotgun down the front of his pants. And the cops, there's a reason number like 830, why we know that this movie is not connected to reality. The cops approached the car with their guns still totally holstered. So rather than just firing first and asking questions later, they're gonna trust these guys. And y'all, this movie was made in 2011. We knew about cops approaching cars

with unarmed black men in them as a problem. Like, this is so tasteless. Yeah, not, not great. No, but he does try to shoot him. Luckily, love interest like grabs him and does like a moment. Yeah, nerd kid ruins it for everybody by not by pushing the gun away. Yeah, but yeah, then there's a shootout. And it's so badly the shootout.

That's the worst. I was crying with laughter. Oh, it is amazing. I've seen toddlers play cowboys and robbers with more acumen than this shot. Oh, seriously. Rookie comes running in and it's like in slow motion. He's like falling into the shot or whatever. And he is holding his gun like it is the very first time.

Like, I don't even know what he's pointing at that. Yeah. He's holding it. Have you ever seen someone carry a dead spider a feetly? That's how he's carrying his gun. Like, if he was running to flush it down the toilet, it would be appropriate spacework for what he does with this gun.

And they literally fire 400 rounds into the bad guy's car. They are not, like just attempt a aim. Just one time attempt trying to hit a thing that is about that like a person in this thing. But they're just firing directly into the car. This thing is so bad. Look, my comment here was,

can the gangs go away again, please? Okay. Okay. Careful what you wish for, Franky, you gotta be careful. Watch you wish for Frankie got to be careful what you wish for and then so they do they literally do like the ice shoot you shoot I shoot you shoot for an indeterminate amount of time and then the two evil gang members spot a little girl to kid man who's just been hanging out while there's all this fucking gunfire going on. She's just been watching. Just hanging out. Filming a monophone, yelling world star, you know. So they just tied to kidnap the little girl and the cops chase them. Oh God.

They've all run out of bullets at this point. So now it becomes a fist fight. And hey, credit where credit is due. Nathan and like four other cops, they tackle big gang member who stole the car from the very beginning. And we just watch Alex Kendrick get the shit being out of him by the Southern game. Oh my God, it was my favorite part of the movie. Just keep wailing. Just bam, bam, bam. It was so long. Delightful. I wish that could have been the whole movie. I would have, I would pay to watch a whole movie of Alex Kendrick just getting the, the shit beat out of him. Kingpin is slamming a guy's head in the door in the next scene over and he's like, all right,

that's a little bit, look at that. Well, and meanwhile, the little girl has run up into some tree fort type thing, right? And the cops get the bad guys, everything. And then the next shot, the father is getting the little girl down from the fort, but we only see the back of his head, and it's the way that it's shot. It's like set up is like this is gonna be,

like who is this guy? There's like this big reveal, right? I don't know if you guys picked up on it, but both, yeah, and it's like this big reveal thing. He's turning, who is it? Who is it? It's just some random dad. It's just some random dad.

It's just some random dad. It's like, they saw, like these filmmakers. It's like they've never set up a scene or held a camera before. So I actually have the explanation for that weird shot. Once again, from the IMDB trivia. Oh, really? Okay. According to the IMDB trivia, originally originally what was supposed to happen is the little girl's

face was supposed to turn into the daughter's face. But they ended up not doing that. Oh, shit, that's where they, so they had that shot, which is obviously set up for them to do the CGI over it. But then they were just like, no, we're not doing that one. No. This film is already 22 hours long. We should probably just, let's just cut to the end. That's the moment they tried it. They decided to edit, right? Their decisions. Yep. Like, come on. I needed to stay. Yeah. Like, that would have made it for me.

Yeah. So they, they tackled the guy and then post arrest. He's having a heart to heart with a with Nathan. And I really wanted him to be like, Hey, man, you, you shot yourself like a lot. Is this two shits? Alex Kendrick. This has to be two. How did you fully shit yourself twice? Did you have a meal in between shitting yourself while this guy can, it's fine. It's fine. So yeah, he also has a heart to heart with the daughter's love interest here. He's like, Hey, um, I know you're about to go to jail for heroin possession, but, um, they're there. And he literally, this moment where he's like, no one loves me. No one cares about

me. And you're like, okay, he's gonna hug him or help him. No, patch him on the shoulder gently and closes the cop door. I laughed super duper hard. Yeah, it's literally like, okay now. Have fun in prison. Yeah, he might as well have said have fun in prison as he shuts the door. And then he turns to rookie and he's like, you did good out there. You're not a rookie anymore. But literally the only cop in this situation who did nothing was the rookie. Yeah. So now we're gonna conclude the movie

with Alex Kendrick's big dad speech. They're at church. And the pastor's talking about what great dads they are and how important it is to have a dad and Alex Kendrick is going to give the how important it is to be a dad speech most terrifying piece of IMDB trivia. According to IMDB, it took 12 takes for him to get this speech. The people in this audience heard this speech. Oh god. 12 times. And if there's a funny moment where the pastor's like, no, I know I'm the pastor

here, but since the guy playing Adam, wrote and directed the movie, apparently he's gonna talk instead of me now. Yep. And there's so many great moments from this dad's speech. One of my favorites was he goes, some man will hear this in market. And I wrote my notes. Oh, so you've heard of our podcast. Some of them will do it for 500 episodes. Alex, you throw in a little congratulations there for the TGA guys. Yeah, it literally like he was, he also, now research is proving that criminals just need fathers.

It's like, well, if it's research, then it must be undeniable. Unless, of course, it's liberal research, that doesn't count. But no, I mean, like literally, it's that thing of just sort of calling out to research as a concept without ever saying like, where it's from or who's doing it or what it's, you know,

it's just research, shut up. Yeah, research is showing is second only to, I did my own research online. Right, yeah, exactly. Research on YouTube is proving. Sheeple. And then he tries to have this rousing like brave heart moment, but it's just psychotic.

He's like, I am the king of my family. Who will be the father? Who's the daddy? I'm the daddy. All the dads in this room fight me right now and of murder. And it does, like he's, what's funny is, yeah, he gets, he gets as rousing as he's capable of. And then it just cuts to the, to the closing credits. And I was like, oh shit, that was supposed to be his big

rousing speech. God damn, he is a bad actor. Also, you put the rousing speech either like right before the climax or at the beginning of the movie, you can't just do it. It can't be the last thing, the literal last thing in the movie. No, and when I say it's a hard cut, I mean, it literally like the movie vanishes as though when he said who will stand with me, someone side tackled Alex Kendrick and there's a pending lawsuit. Yeah, they didn't have enough footage to do a cross fade.

It's just slam cut. I'm just imagining that it's the last scene and the sopranos, right? But it's like, Tony soprano just got shot in the head. You know, that's... Oh, that actually makes me very happy. That is the way this is going to be. In my mind, that is how this movie ends from now on.

All right, gentlemen, well, that's the end of the film, but we usually like to sum things up here. Any parenting advice you learned from this movie? I mean, basically, I don't know, you can still sell your kids apparently. You just call it, you know, looking after their interests. Oh, golly. Absolutely. All right. Well, that does it for our review of courageous. And I want to thank you guys again so much for coming on. Congratulations again on that 500 episode. In case there is a fool out there who hasn't

checked out, thank God I'm atheist. Where can they find more of you? You know, the podcast, you're listening to a podcast. So just whatever you're listening to this on, type in, thank God I'm atheist when you're done and go and listen to our show. It is a fantastic show. Absolutely. Thank you.

All right. Well, that does it for our review of courageous, but that's not gonna do it for the episode just yet because we still need to tenderize your titties for next week. So tell me, me, what's on deck? Well, me. We'll be watching after school. Fuck yourself. I do this part. We'll be watching after school. It's the God's Not Dead of 1988. It's on YouTube and I'd need to say more. So with that to look forward to, we'll bring episode 307 to a merciful close. Thanks to Frank and Dan. Once again, for checking this movie out with us, check out their show. Thank God I'm atheist 500 episodes. Send

them a congratulations and a huge thanks to all the Patreon donors that help make this show go. If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash God awful and thereby earn an early access to an ad-free version of every episode. You can also help us out to turn by leaving us a five-star review and by sharing the show on all your various social media platforms. And if you enjoyed this show, be sure to check out our siblings shows, the scathing atheist citation needed, D&D minus and the skeptic rat available wherever podcasts live. If you have questions, comments or cinematic suggestions, you can email God awful movies at gmail.com. Legal services for this podcast provided by the law of system P Andrew Torres and we're going to use him this week because I think I'd confess to a crime.

Tim Robertson takes care of our social media. Oh boy, does he? Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slotnik of Evil to Raff Son Mars. All other music was written and performed by our audio engineer Morgan Clark and was used with his permission. Thanks again for giving us a chunkier life this week. For Frank and Dan, I'm Eli Bosnick. Prumison to work hard to earn another chunk next week until then? We'll leave you with the breakfast club close. Breakfast Club Close!

Alex Kendrick's neck meat grew up to become a pastor in a small church and part-time pundit on Fox News. After learning that Adam's love for him isn't real, Sheriff Daddy goes on to found the department's first LGBTQ workplace rights commission. Oh yeah! In retrospect, Alex's partner probably could have found Jesus without doing 15 years in prison. Five count, which then sinks it up. Yeah, that's true. So Frank, we're going to do a five count. You're just going to join me on the four and the five.

Okay. Wait, I'm going to count to five and you're just going to say four and five with me. No clap. No clap. Oh, okay. All right, cool. five with me. No clap, no clap. Oh, okay. All right. Cool. That's too fancy.

We do. Morgan can't handle the clap. He had it one time. It wasn't very good. I'm on the good internet because I'm back home, Dan. You whoo. You're not, you're not at a shared office. No, I'm not at a fucking co-working space full of smelly hippies who want to pitch

me their startup ideas every time I try to take a shit. Oh, the worst of all past. Frank, you didn't catch it, but Eli has spent the last what? Two weeks. Two weeks in Seattle. In Seattle. Mmm. Which was, oh, not now. Yeah, exactly. Yes, now. Not now. Normally, that's lovely. Me and the heat dome left at the same time. Oh, come on. Is it done being 108 degrees? Better go home to Jersey where it is 108 degrees.

Jesus Christ. Yeah, you've made bad decisions. I made a series of terrible, terrible choices. It is 180 degrees. Jesus Christ. Yeah, you've made bad decisions. I made a series of terrible choices. Okay.