Salvation Boulevard

Needless to say... this one would be pretty offensive to the die hard Christians out there. So, let's just say, if you got offended by the movie Saved (written and directed by Brian Dannelly)... definitely skip Salvation Boulevard, but if you enjoyed Saved, as I did a great deal, then you might also enjoy this humorous jab at extremist believers. The story centers around an accidental shooting. The victim is Peter Blaylock, (Ed Harris) an atheist whose goal is to bring believers to see truth and reason. The shooter... (don't worry they give this part away in the previews) is famous and over the top Pastor Dan Day (Pierce Brosnan). The man in the middle... is recently saved, ex-Greatful Dead fan or "dead head" Carl Vanderveer (Greg Kinnear). Carl is married to Gwen (Jennifer Connelly) who led Carl to the Lord. Anyway, Pastor Dan, Peter, and Carl are in Peter's office discussing the idea of a pastor and an atheist co-writing a book of the two opposing beliefs when Pastor Day accidentally shoots Peter in the head. Pastor Dan proceeds... to place the gun in unconscious Peter's hand and tells Carl not to call the police.

This is when things get tricky. Carl doesn't know what to do so he calls 911 from a pay phone and anonymously reports hearing gun shots from Peter Blaylock's office. When Carl goes to his wife and father-in-law to reveal the truth about the shooting he is met with nothing but disbelief. They are convinced that he is having a mental episode of some kind. With nowhere else to turn, he goes back to the scene of the crime and confides in the security guard who coincidentally is an ex-"dead head" herself. Her name is Honey Foster (Marisa Tomei) and she represents a past life for Carl of partying and freeness that he is trying to forget. While the two are investigating, ninja like men jump out of a van covered in jesus-esque images and kidnap Carl.

To add to this huge mess, the news is released that Peter Blaylock is not dead but in a coma. Everyone is loosing their minds. Gwen, Carl's wife, is painting like a lunatic... images of demons tearing her husband away from the church and so on. Pastor Dan is trying to keep his "God's will be done" face on while really scheming a way to save his ass from jail, and Carl is trying to find a way to stay alive.

Well, Greg Kinnear is great in everything I've seen him in from Some One Like You to Little Miss Sunshine, and he was great in this as well. Pierce Brosnan has grown on me as an actor. I used to not care for him at all, but he gained my respect in Ghost Writer. In Salvation Boulevard he plays the perfect unlikable fake that he's supposed to be. For the maybe five minutes that Ed Harris is on screen he's wonderful as usual, and I love seeing Jennifer Connelly play the tightly wound unhinged lunatic. She does it so well (for example in the movie Virginia). All in all I have to say I still prefer Saved as a movie for exposing the dark sides of Christian extremists, mostly because I felt like I got closer to the characters than in Salvation Boulevard. But Salvation Boulevard was still a wonderful story of ignorance and stupidity and what you get when you stand against it... shot in the head...:) Only joking.