BodEquip Ministries - Equipping the Body of Christ to Live Abundantly.

Movie Review: Rust

Quick Plot Summary: A pastor who has stepped away from the faith returns to his hometown and rediscovers his faith while discovering a tragedy might not have gone down the way everyone had thought.

Rating: Possibly Worthwhile
Suggested Ages: 13+

If nothing else, this is an interesting movie. The scenery, the people, and the story all are a bit "different" than your typical movie fare. It's a rather low-budget production with a boatload of volunteer actors but the quality of the movie and acting is reasonable enough. It's nothing stellar, but it works.

Though a bit slow-paced, this film will likely keep you interested and engaged as the exploration of what happened with a mysterious fire (where a Christian man and his family died) unfolds.

The core of this movie centers around the "former pastor" who is having a faith crisis because he is having trouble reconciling all the horrible tragedies of our world with a good, loving God. This mysterious fire where a good Christian family were killed only adds to that. And yet, he comes to a place of "peace with God" of sorts where he realizes that we don't really know why (our knowledge is limited) but that God sees much more and is loving and desires to comfort us.

Now, what I just described is pretty much the sum total of what this movie has to say on this subject. How this former pastor actually really comes to this place of understanding is never really shown in clear terms - it just kind of happens. And, at the same time, it never gets any deeper than that. Like the pastor in the film and many people before me, I also had to wrestle with the goodness of God vs. what I see in this world dilemna - it is one of the last big things that I had to work through before becoming a Christian when I was 15. But to adequately work through those things you have to understand what the Bible says about sin, our fallen world, the devil, the results of our choices, the fact that God gets a lot of blame for what really either directly or indirectly can be traced back to us, etc. None of that is in this movie.

This movie is VERY superficial in its dealing with the message it conveys. It does NOT, in any deep intellectual or spiritual (Scriptural) way, help you as the viewer to REALLY solve or come to grips with how to reconcile faith in God with tragedies we see in our world. The answers are on a superficial level in this movie, but that doesn't mean there isn't some value there. We all have to start somewhere and for some people (maybe even many people), that more superficial level can be a good starting point. Ultimately, this movie can be an uplift and encourager for some - perhaps even many - Christians. But I definitely wouldn't recommend showing this to any skeptics of the faith as there is nothing compelling in this movie for them and it would likely just bolster their unbelief by viewing answers perceived to be "too shallow".

Another main message that this movie draws out is one of not rushing to judgment of a person just because they are "different".

I would not refer to this movie as a "Christian movie" but rather just a movie that has some faith components in it. While a pretty clean movie (I didn't notice any bad language), there is a very casual view taken of divorce (and its supposedly non-harmful effects on children) which bothered me quite a bit. The themes in this movie (including the tragic fire which you see glimpses of via different flashback scenes) might be intense for younger children (they would also be bored silly with this movie!).

P.S.- If you ARE wanting to dive deeper into exploring how to reconcile a good/loving God with tragedies we see in our world, the 2nd chapter of my book "Where's the Abundant Life?" explores this very thing.

Reviewed by Christopher Long,
BodEquip Ministries

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