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the audience applauded

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The movie covered just about all the problems that are the highest potential cause of a teen suicide, those which are present in every country and culture. And the story kind of rightly put it at the right weight emphasis on each subject; like that peer pressure causes more stress than dysfunctional family or unplanned pregnancy, because peer pressure happens to all teens, no matter what demography they belong to. The subjects are weaved in quite nicely, utilizing the duration of the movie. Although I must say that the flow of the story feels kind of strange because we see Jake going in and out of problems in such a fast pace. The acting is definitely not the strong part of this movie. All the actors are merely doing enough to have the story delivered, yet there's less effort in conveying out the emotions that should be depicted.

I should start off by telling you a few things about myself to remove any false pretenses. I am a committed Christian who Pastors a youth group. About 3 years ago, my best friend from primary school killed himself and this woke me up from my complacency and caused me to re evaluate the world I was living in. We should have an awareness of the effect we have on others we meet and have contact with in the world and hold ourselves accountable for them. So there are a lot of points in Jake's story and also Chris' that really hit home to me, and I showed this film to my youth group last night. A group of kids who'd been tackling and screaming each other minutes earlier sat completely silent for the next two hours.The film starts with the main character Jake at the funeral of his childhood friend Roger, who we soon learn committed suicide right in front of Jake after shooting up their school. Jake is haunted by Roger's final words "you never cared anyway," and thinks back to the way their friendship ended, with Jake rejecting Roger to go and party with the cool kids, and then consistently ignoring him for the next two years until his death. Attending Jake's funeral leads to Jake meeting a Youth Pastor named Chris, who helps Jake when he is stranded drunk after police raid a party.Jake eventually ends up coming first to church and then to youth group. Jake researches some of Roger's blogs online and comes into contact with a whole community of depressed teenagers and eventually decides to befriend one of them, Johnny Garcia, and that's where the title of the film comes from.The acting in this film is serviceable. It is no master class, but there are no real cringe worthy moments either. The script is uneven, containing many genuine moments, but every now and then descending into caricature and over simplification. The production values are surprisingly decent for a Christian film, probably a few too many slow motion shots and short crane shots of characters during arguments, two of my least favourite film making clichés. But these can easily be forgiven. The overall authenticity of the story and the consistency of the message being delivered ultimately win out.This film is essentially a call to arms for all people. It's time to shed our apathy, reach out to the people who need it. The old man who sits at the same bench at the supermarket every day. That one person in our workplace or school who everyone picks on. Just a bit of effort can mean a whole lot. It's not really about converting a person to my world view, it's about showing a person with nothing to live for that life is worth it.Be mindful of the rating. This DVD, with beer pong, chugging, a reasonably authentic suicide etc is strictly for older youth.

I've seen a lot of movies and this is a very good movie covering all the aspects of a tragedy. I've seen some movies that put the 'GOD' factor out there as the end all beat all way to go, but this movie has done it very tastefully and not preach the all mighty too much.There have been lots of movies out there that take tragedies and deal with the human element and not go near the religious side of things, but this movie could have cut a couple scenes on it.What I did like was how well the story dealt with how many children these days are faced with peer pressures and not know how to deal with them or have others out there to turn to. If all families could take the time to see this movie and make the effort for themselves as well as their children to be better people than they might all ready be.Life is full of challenges, but we don't have to struggle through them alone if people would keep an open mind and heart to others.

I saw this movie in Redbox and had been wanting to get it for a few days cause it looked pretty good according to the trailer. Last night I got it and Letters to God for me and my brother to watch. We watched Letters to God which was pretty good, then we started watching To Save A Life at 2:30am. I was getting really sleepy but within the first 5 minutes of this movie I was wide awake. I didn't know this was a Christian based movie. And the storyline and characters were amazing. Me and my brother were so into the movie we didn't even realize how late it was, or how tired we were. I love movies and am drawn to good dramas, especially Christian based ones. This one was way better then Letters to God. This movie was very powerful and tackled youth struggling with self-esteem issues, knowing God, and Spiritual values. I wish they had movies like this when I was in high school. I was a Sophomore in high school when Columbine happened and in so many ways the things characters dealt with in this movie were similar to the things kids at Columbine dealt with. Another thing is, most Christian films the quality of the movie isn't that great, like they had minimal locations or equipment to work with. The Cinematography sucks, and so do the actors, but you are able to overlook those things to a degree because you are looking at the overall message of the film. But, with To Save A Life you have a quality produced film, with beautiful Cinematography, great actors and actresses, a good musical soundtrack and just an overall amazing story. Definitely the best movie I've seen in a while. Everyone should check this one out. Me and my brother are going to go buy it. :)