When I heard the name Machine Gun Preacher, I expected some sort of ’70s-style exploitation throwback along the lines of Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun. And with a plot aimed directly at an ex-con, former heroin addict and reformed biker badass who finds Jesus (thanks to his ex-stripper wife) after a drug-induced episode that ends with him dumping a bludgeoned hitchhiker on the side of the road.

While it still sounds a lot like the sensationalized stuff Rob Zombie or Quentin Tarantino might come up with, Machine Gun Preacher is actually based on the true story of Sam Childers, who combined his violent tendencies with his newfound faith and took it to the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group that has been terrorizing Ugandan and Sudanese villages for years. After befriending a member of the peace-keeping Sudan People’s Liberation Army (Souléymane Sy Savané) and seeing the horrors that the LRA inflicts on innocent Sudanese people each day, Childers begins systematically fighting back against the LRA, going so far as to launch attacks on them rather than sit back and wait for them to attack during the night.

Childers, passionately played by 300‘s Gerard Butler, makes it his mission to free the children that have been enslaved by the LRA (most of which are either forced to fight on the side of the LRA or go into the sex trade). Then he decides to take the ultimate first step in regentrifying a neighborhood when he purchases a piece of land right in the middle of the war-torn area and builds an orphanage there.

While his actions seem noble, especially in comparison to his unscrupulous past, we soon see that Childers has, in many ways, traded his drug addiction for a new obsession, finding a more productive outlet for his unstable, violent tendencies along the way. Who’s to argue when he’s liberating dozens of Sudanese children and giving people who have done far more gruesome things than he’s ever done a taste of their own malevolent medicine, all in the name of God? Well,  his wife (Source Code‘s Michelle Monaghan), daughter (Madeline Carroll) and best friend (Revolutionary Road‘s Michael Shannon), who become more and more neglected as Childers’ obsession and anger continue to grow.

Though the film attempts to convey an uplifting message, it’s hard for Childers to ever become a completely likable person due to his selfish and unstable temperament. But that grittiness lends a sense of realism to Machine Gun Preacher, clearly illustrating that Childers’ intentions are often misguided ways for him to unleash his aggression. But with Childers continuing to fight his fight to this day, we can all be thankful that he’s turned his machine guns towards more deserving targets than the previous recipients of his ire.

Machine Gun Preacher. Directed by Marc Forster. Starring Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon and Souléymane Sy Savané. Rated R. www.machinegunpreacher.org/movie.

Review by Jonathan Williams