To Save a Life (2009)

Dreadfully Boring

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

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.

Aside from the connection to the church, this movie was Extremely Well Written. I would recommend this for any person, let alone teenager. It was inspiring and confirmed my passion for helping others. Although I would have liked it even better if the script was non-denominational, I can appreciate that it was (mostly) true to life, and most of the characters, were pretty good actors (Jake, Chris, Johnny, Roger, etc...) I also really liked that it had a couple twists to the story and that it was not entirely attached to just one main theme, such as the idea of suicide. It had other issues teenagers go through. I am wondering how realistic the party scenes were because they seemed more like college parties than high school, but that's usually how movies tend to go. Otherwise, the relationships between Jake and his girlfriend, parents, friends, were solid.

This is a awesome movie for any age. The story is very good and something we should all remember not to do. In the movie you will realize that if you let people join your group and be nice, it can save a lot. In the movie there is Jake's friend Roger who killed himself because he felt like no one was there with him. Jake feels that this could have been prevented if he hadn't of ditched Roger for a girl in fresh-man year. After the death of Roger, Jake decided something must be done about teen suicidal. Another guy at his school is being bullied and doesn't seem to be happy. Jake says that he needs to do something. The guy was thrilled to have Jake Taylor a senior basketball star that sits with all the cool kids come and see if he wants to sit with him. Those two started to hang out and get to know each other. Jake asked him if he ever wanted to kill himself. He said no. Jake and this girl Amy start having an affair with each other and being each others dates to the parties. Jake gets Amy pregnant and they both decide to give the baby away for adoption but they will not get an abortion. Later on, after the baby is born Jake moves and when he is about to leave the guy came over and gave him a note. It read: Dear Jake, when you asked me if i ever wanted to kill myself, i said no but until you came along i was thinking about it. You saved my life. Thank you. It was a sad but amazing movie and it shows that if you care for someone stuff will change.

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. :)