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FAITH & FILM: Life may turn some off, but give hope to others Bill Fentum, Jan 15, 2010
To Save a Life
By Bill Fentum Staff Writer
To Save a Life Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements involving teen suicide, teen drinking, some drug content, disturbing images and sexuality
Outreach Inc. will release the suicide drama To Save a Life in theaters Jan. 22, with a full line of tie-ins for local congregations, including a devotional series, T-shirts and video clips.
The marketing plan should draw teens across the country like the ones youth pastor Jim Britts leads at New Song Community Church in Oceanside, Calif. Mr. Britts wrote the screenplay, he told ChristianCinema.com, to reach “the most hurting generation that’s ever been . . . lonely and left out and lost.”
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 10-to-19-year-olds in the U.S., according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Will the film do anything to fight the trend?
Let’s hope so, though church youth groups may embrace To Save a Life more than the general public. As cinema, it’s mostly in the love-it-or-hate-it, unsubtle tradition of Facing the Giants and Fireproof.
In the opening scene, 18-year-old Jake Taylor (Randy Wayne) stands numbly at a graveside service for Roger Dawson (Robert Bailey Jr.). In flashback, we learn Roger suffered a crushed leg years earlier, when he pushed Jake from the path of an oncoming car. Jake, to his shame, later rejected his friend to join a more popular circle in high school.
Now Roger has killed himself, leaving Jake guilt-ridden, with a sense that it’s time to mature.
He doesn’t get much help from girlfriend Amy (Deja Kreutzberg) or basketball chum Doug (Steve Crowder), a hard-partying nuisance. At home, mom and dad are close to a divorce—another crisis he can’t ignore.
Then he meets Chris Vaughn (Joshua Weigel), a local youth minister who invites Jake to attend Sunday services. Before long Chris also coaches him to “own” how he treated Roger, seek God’s forgiveness and commit to following Christ.
In church he meets new pals like Andrea (Kim Hidalgo), and the group gathers daily for lunch at school. Jake then befriends Jonny (Sean Michael)—an alienated loner who reminds him of Roger—and helps the boy out of his shell.
Amy, though, feels hypocritically judged by some of the church youth, and for a while leaves Jake because of it. In resentment he lashes out at them, until Chris reminds him that even those who “fake” their Christianity deserve compassion and a second chance.
That’s the whole point of To Save a Life: a call for a more loving culture where tragedies like Roger’s death could be prevented. Director Brian Baugh delivers the message earnestly, and the actors (all relative unknowns, but not the amateurs we’ve seen in similar films) are competent, if never outstanding.
But Mr. Britts’ script overloads the story, piling one crisis onto another until the 120-minute running time feels longer than most three-hour epics. Heaven knows this isn’t the first faith-based drama to make that mistake; it won’t be the last.
That said, churches will likely host screenings in years to come, and could reach at-risk youth in their communities. In the ChristianCinema.com interview, Mr. Britts said a Los Angeles teen e-mailed him to confess he had scarred his arms with razor blades, but after seeing the film decided to throw the batch away.
So perfect or not, in some cases To Save a Life may live up to its title. Who are we to complain?
To Save a Life
In the opening scene, 18-year-old Jake Taylor (Randy Wayne) stands numbly at a graveside service for Roger Dawson (Robert Bailey Jr.). In flashback, we learn Roger suffered a crushed leg years earlier, when he pushed Jake from the path of an oncoming car. Jake, to his shame, later rejected his friend to join a more popular circle in high school. 
