"New Hope" (2012)

SPOILERS!:

Great movie!  That's a win.  Not so fast that you're breathless, but a nice relaxing pace that keeps you interested.  The dinner--that was a disaster (plot-wise, that's a good thing).  The plot:  well-played!  Enough basketball to keep it as a main part of the movie, but not so much that I would call it a basketball movie.  It was refreshing to see families that had husbands and wives who were human but not divorce-dysfunctional--families that stick together even when they struggle.  Wonderful movie!

The only bad thing for me was the movie cover--the picture that is used on the "DVD" cover.  That cover didn't work for me.  Lousy cover.  It also was only God.  No Jesus.  At all.  Fairly accurate, but no Jesus.  urmmm...

The ending--and how it put the pieces together--was stitched together very well--skillfully woven--so well, that they didn't have to choose this side or that side.  They chose both sides.

Written well.  I liked it.  A lot.

AND IT HAD A "FEMININE" ENDING!!!!  When the credits roll and you go "then what happened?  You're not stopping now are you?"  They had an in-genius way of solving that--ending the movie but still letting the story go on--a photo album next to the credits of all the answers to the "then what?"  OH so nice!!!  That makes it feel finished to me.

And how you get there is not so obvious that you get bored, but also certain to get to where you are expecting.  And even a moment or two when you go "oh boy, this is bad" but you're not sure how, or if; and then there are a couple of surprises, too, but then they make sense after see them, so they're believable.  Keeps ya watchin'.

Yeah, I'd watch it again.  :)  And a repeat:  Ben Davies from Courageous.  Nice choice.  :)

And there were crutches.  And shiners.  And personality/story tensions ("I do not want to be here"  "Why me?" and hold your breath and watch, and ... and ????)