Voiceless (2016)

Sadly Over-hyped

Good concept, poorly executed.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Whether you are Christian or not, I don't care. What matters is what this film tries to teach the audience and where it falls flat.Just off the top of my head:1) The clinic that our main character glares daggers at all the time is a clinic that offers abortions as a service. It is *not* a clinic that *only* offers abortions. The women there get contraceptives, pap smears, exams, and other checkups to guarantee their health. 2) The main character acts like something is up when he is not allowed to know personal CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION about the people who visit there. Sorry, but you're not a doctor, you're some random guy on the street. You do not have the privilege to know anything that's not your business, least of all because you are not a friend or family member.3) The medical professional will not, can not, and would not perform abortions on unwilling women because it would mean they would be sued to kingdom come, not to mention that there are laws against performing surgery on people who have not given the OK. That abusive husband would have had the cops called on him immediately. If anything, the staff working there would have tried to stall him as long as possible while keeping the pregnant woman safe, perhaps into protective custody or a women's shelter while they dealt with the one-dimensional villain.4) If abortions are not available to women, they will find more dangerous, back alley ways to do it. Women have been having abortions since forever and if it wasn't through a doctor it was drinking herbs or throwing themselves downstairs. Barring access to something as clean and safe as an abortion clinic for someone who is committed to aborting the fetus will only drive them to find other dangerous means to do it. As for people who claim it's "killing children", millions of children die all around the world from hunger and disease that are aggravated by severe poverty, famine, war, terrible orphanage systems, or abusive/neglectful parents. Lives that were statistically inevitable because of the people who birthed them, their country of origin, and the state of affairs in the region they were born. I say that it is only humane to prevent such suffering by stopping it before it could ever occur. To allow people to suffer through life knowing nothing but empty stomachs and battered bones and a numb tongue is a fate worse than death.

Maybe I'm very old-fashioned, but shouldn't semi-amateur filmmakers, the kind who get friends and family to post reviews on IMDb (judging from the number of reviewers here who have one credit to their names -- this film) be a little humble? But this is the honest-to-God working/alternate title: American Hero: The Movie. I mean! And this is the tag line: One man. One Fight. The Ultimate Sacrifice. Well, there are many more than one man in this film -- it seems to be a completely male lead and made project, and almost all female characters are victims or deluded fools, with few or no lines, even about their own abortions. The one fight is clear -- against abortion, and not, I repeat, not a fight to pay for and care for children. You could say the protagonist takes it a little far: spying on the clinic behind Venetian blinds, harassing people going in and out, even pushing one girl over the edge into suicide. But I just don't see who or what the sacrifice is, let alone the Ultimate Sacrifice. Is it the abusive husband, lying in the pool of his own blood (symbolism!)? Is it the protagonist's wife, who thanks God in church for a man who opened her eyes? Or is it the viewer, sacrificing brain cells he will never get back?

Voiceless did a good job of showing the struggle of Christians who believe, intellectually, that they are called to help the marginalized. Making the leap from addressing a challenging topic with the mind, and prayer, to tackling it with action is well made. I had hoped to be entertained by this movie (I was) and I thought I might be challenged (I was). The film offers appropriate challenges viewers in an entertaining way. Some reviews have noted that the portrayals of women coerced into abortion in this film misrepresent the truth. Those close to the industry understand all too well that coercion is a major factor in the scenarios faced by women of all ages. Accuracy in this film is not lacking.

Due to certain circumstances, I saw this film four months before its theatrical release. Thus, to the best of my knowledge, this is not only the first negative review of Voiceless but the first review of it at all. And as the first reviewer of this film, I must say that it is not only horribly made but dangerous.This is not the worst Christian film ever made, and it is far from the best. It takes certain risks, such as having a tattooed protagonist and an interracial marriage, that other Christian films would not take. The cinematography and acting are B-movie competent, enough so as not to distract, but the screenplay is a disjointed mess. First of all, the "hero" is dangerously violent throughout, and this is not resolved by the film's end. He runs a boxing gym, which is entirely irrelevant to the film, only serving to connect characters. The only possible antagonist appears for less than five minutes; the filmmakers attempt to humanize her, only to immediately gloss over her (logically sound) justification for running a women's clinic that offers abortions.And whether you believe abortion should be allowed or not (if you've seen the film, you're probably thinking not), the implications about abortions and the women who have them in this film are not only inaccurate but carry the potential to be severely dangerous to real-life women and their children. It is painstakingly obvious that there were no female voices involved in the creative process, with the film presenting the notion that women only have abortions because their parents or partners force them to. Worse yet, the film makes it immediately clear that the women's clinic in question provides services to women far beyond abortions, services such as gynecological check-ups and cancer screenings that otherwise might not be available to them. And what does the protagonist do? Ignore this and decide that the best course of action is to have the clinic closed.By far the most offensive, inaccurate, and dangerous suggestion in the film comes in one of its most pivotal story lines. For context, our blond war vet protagonist is approached by a young woman, who asks if God will forgive her for terminating her pregnancy and if her baby will go to Heaven. Despite his best efforts, said young lady goes through with her abortion, ultimately committing suicide out of guilt. And what does our protagonist gather about the clinic from this? That the clinic made her do it. That she wasn't sure if she was ready to have an abortion but the clinic MADE her anyways. Not "allowed" (an offensive suggestion in its own right, but more stomachable). "MADE."I cannot, in good conscience, give this film any higher than the minimum rating. It is a travesty both cinematically and morally. There's a quote from the Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus for the film Courageous that I like to refer to when speaking about low- budget Christian movies such as this that emphasize message over character or plot: "While the filmmaking is fairly competent, Courageous is overall worthless to anybody who doesn't subscribe to its dogmatic agenda." The last eleven words apply to this film.