Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

GazerRise Fantastic!

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

nightmarelyre As somewhat of an Agnostic who have nothing against Christian movies on principal, I still found this to be a offensively bad, poorly made and biased propaganda piece that did the complete opposite of what it tried to do.The film centers around a small group of different people who find themselves on a forest road in the middle of nowhere, only to find that the main road they are traveling has been closed down due to a storm. Instead they all detour to a side road to find a diner to take shelter in, only to find out that the guy owning it is in fact Jesus. Then he starts to grill them about their hidden dark pasts in an attempt to rekindle their faith.Now this concept in of itself could maybe have worked if it was played subtly. For example, if it was left ambiguous whether or not this man is truly Jesus or not. Perhaps have the protagonists open up about themselves in believable ways by their own will to create an actual on-screen relationship between them, and to give real weight to their decisions to change their ways. Instead, we have Jesus practically forcing his way into their minds and threatening them with eternal damnation, while acting like a straight up sociopathic serial killer and stalker.I can't stress this enough, this is the single worst portrayal of Jesus on film I have ever seen, even worse than Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, and that portrayal was intended to be bad for the sake of comedy. He plays on people's pains and fears to manipulate them, going as far as to force a girl to forgive her sexually abusive dad with threats of eternal damnation and an awful future life, and literally demands the people in the diner to bend to his will. I thought Jesus was supposed to love everybody and ask people to love him back on their own free will?It doesn't help that the protagonists in this movie are all bland stock characters with dull, lifeless acting bringing them to life either. We got our obligatory straw Atheist, the bickering couple contemplating divorce, the troubled girl who is losing her faith due to trauma and the born again Christian who is basically already in Jesus' good graces. But she is ordered to leave her boyfriend anyways because it amuses Jesus and because her boyfriend isn't Christian. None of them feel like real people except for the straw Atheist character, who surprisingly seem to act somewhat rationally to begin with outside of being a massive jerk, before eventually succumbing to the granary.Gluing this story of abuse and misquoting of religious text together is also some really shoddy technical work, that at times is at the levels of a home movie. Cheap stock thunder effects, tons of noticeable continuity errors, an obvious home camera that is carried by the camera operator most of the time, and a sound designer that thinks panning dialogue entirely to the left speaker is somehow a good idea. It looks and feels cheap and amateurish, even for a low budget production.In the end it's hard to even describe what happens in this movie, because it is just really an hour and a half of incredibly uncomfortable or ridiculous interviews with paper thin characters being interrogated by some sort of being claiming to be Jesus. Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the fact that Satan appears in the movie towards the end (named DeVille, because it's that sort of movie) I would have expected the big final twist to be that this is Satan pretending to be Jesus or something.At the end of the day, the movie is terrible not because it is Christian, but because it's a movie that tries to scare non believers and people like me, who find themselves caught between camps, to repent. Hell, the film itself states this outright. As such, it not only ends up as an absolutely dreadful viewing experience (unless you riff it the entire time), but also a disservice to religion as a whole. It unknowingly paints Christianity as an evil force that is only marginally better than the alleged damnation you would face otherwise, rather than the positive force in somebody's life it's intended to be.The only positive thing I have to say about this is that it is at least not A Little Piece of Heaven with Kirk Cameron.

joeyandemilysmith I give this movie 5 out of 10 because I could not seem to pull my attention away from the movie; apparently I found it *that* riveting, but when I watch a Christian movie, I am on the lookout for any inconsistencies with the Bible and that may explain some of my locked gaze. I did find two things that bothered me about the movie and therefore, I do believe they are biblically inconsistent. First I'll cover the good parts:Not a big weeper myself, I found myself moved to tears several times in the lives portrayed by the characters. The movie accurately portrays the difficult life to which a walk with Christ calls the Christian. On earth, Jesus' saving grace does not prevent the Christian from pain or difficult, challenging sufferings--in fact, it calls the Christian deeper into such things, while being able to cling to Christ ever tighter because of the true hope He gave/gives us. This movie reflects this well.What I find troublesome about the movie is the background of the business man who ends up rejecting Christ and going to hell. Our hell-bound businessman had parents and a grandmother who were loving and precious in the sight of Christ and who also prayed fervently for the businessman's salvation for a long time. In the movie, Jesus covers this more than once in different ways and is revealed in flashbacks. However, this man still ends up angry with Jesus and choosing not-Him, which is hell. That "encounter" communicates that prayer is ineffective and unproductive!Also, that particular storyline is inconsistent with itself in that if this man was raised by such loving parents and grandparent, that he would not grow up to be such an angry and unthoughtful person, unless the grand/parents themselves had gross oversight themselves in attending to the emotional needs of their hell-bound son. I recognize that there is room for this in the Bible; look at how David's own son wanted to kill him! However, the Bible clearly states how David broke His law and the resulting consequences are tragic; David fathered his first six children from six different foreign (non-believing) women, and he wasn't there for the kids. In contrast, our businessman was not without a loving and caring upbringing. The only thing the story relates is that he was mortally embarrassed by his youthful foreign accent and poor upbringing. Godly parents would have coached him through that. I also found a theological inconsistency with the movie, in which Jesus stated that He leaves the choice to commit our lives to Him up to us. I once took pride in that notion myself, but after further study of the Word, I now understand that it is only Christ in me that made that choice and not my own wretched self at all. The Lord had set my life up in such a way that compelled me deeply and with all the molecules that comprise me to give my life to Jesus, not my own choice. Not everyone is going to be elected and Jesus only died and then rose again for the elect.Sure its a low-budget film, but if the story is good, that is all that matters. The best actor was the husband whose wife wanted to leave him. His portrayal made me cry. And the lady who played his wife was pretty good at being cruel to him. Whoever played Jesus did a pretty good job of looking at and speaking to the characters in love. Jesus did a good job in jerking my tears also in His interactions with the hell-bound businessman, even though it was to me, theologically inconsistent.

Christian Pompei the 3rd I rated this movie an honest 4. The only reason it has such a high score rate is because 90% of the Earth's population believe in God and more than 2 billion in Jesus. But if you're a atheist or agnostic you should skip this one because it's nothing more than a cinematographic summarization of the Bible, including the naive, child-appropriate story telling, fight between God and the devil and so one. Bad acting, bad directing, scripting, effects and everything related to cinematographic art is bad. The way the main character talks will remind you of a very passionate priest or pastor or Jehovah's Witnesses on a Sunday morning. The only thing I liked was the initial idea: a horror-like movie where you gather a bunch of people in a diner on a bad weather and things happen... but despite a classic film where people die in terrible pain and horror, this time only good and wonderful things take place. But besides that, there is no action, no story line, the characters are weak and flat, the ideas and philosophy are STRICTLY religious and the dialog disputes "don't stay in court". As an agnostic, I always like a good religious dispute but I was deeply disappointed this time. If you have one chance to face God what questions will you ask him? I have a bunch of them prepared and ready but non were heard in this film, nothing to upset the All Mighty, nothing to make the watcher think more than she/he should. If the biblical dialogs were more elevated and smart it would have made a good religious documentary. If you would take the whole religion idea out, it could have been a good movie.

mike-ryan455 The Encounter is a nice piece of independent Christian cinema. It doesn't star Sir Lawrence Olivier or boast a cast of thousands. The low budget production values clearly show but they don't distract. The cast is not sterling and the script could have used another draft or two. Still, the movie was decent and thoughtful and generally enjoyable.There isn't any violence or obscenity or sex in it. That's a welcome relief these days. You can actually sit down and watch it with the kids and not cringe.If you like a quiet Christian movie that will leave you feeling good and slightly more humble, this should fit the bill nicely.