War Room (film)

War Room
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alex Kendrick
Produced by	Stephen Kendrick Gary Wheeler
Written by	Alex Kendrick Stephen Kendrick
Starring	Priscilla Shirer T.C. Stallings Karen Abercrombie Alex Kendrick Beth Moore
Music by	Paul Mills
Cinematography	Bob M. Scott
Edited by	Steve Hullfish Alex Kendrick
Production companies	Affirm Films Kendrick Brothers Productions Provident Films
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release dates	August 28, 2015 (2015-08-28) (United States)
Running time	120 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3 million[2]
Box office	$73.7 million[3]

War Room is a 2015 American Christian drama film directed by Alex Kendrick and co-written and produced by Stephen Kendrick. War Room is the Kendrick brothers' fifth film project and their first film project through Kendrick Brothers Productions.^[4][5][6] Provident Films, Affirm Films and TriStar Pictures partnered with the Kendrick brothers to release the film.

Regarding the title of the film, director Kendrick says "We called it 'War Room' because, like the military, we should seek God for the right strategy before going into combat. By combat, I mean daily issues we face in our culture."^[7] The film was released in North American theaters on August 28, 2015, and received generally negative reviews from critics, but became a box office success and a sleeper hit.^[8][9][10] Regarding War Room's box office performance, CNN said "some might call it a faith-based David versus the secular Goliaths in the entertainment industry".^[11]

Plot

Tony (T.C. Stallings) and Elizabeth Jordan (Priscilla Shirer) have a big house, a beautiful daughter, and plenty of money. Despite their apparent success, they face a strained marriage. Tony, a pharmaceutical salesman, is almost never there for his daughter, Danielle (Alena Pitts); has been verbally abusive with Elizabeth; and has thoughts about cheating on his wife with other women he has been looking at.

Elizabeth, a realtor, goes to work with the elderly Miss Clara (Karen Abercrombie) to sell her house. Miss Clara senses the stress Elizabeth is under, and suggests that Elizabeth fight for their marriage by praying for Tony. Miss Clara shows Elizabeth a special closet she has dedicated to praying, and calls it her "War Room" because as she puts it, "In order to stand up and fight the enemy, you need to get on your knees and pray." As Elizabeth starts to seriously pray for her husband, Tony is away on a business trip but is having dinner with a beautiful woman who invites him back to her apartment. Just as he is about to leave with her, he becomes nauseous and runs to the bathroom to throw up.

Shortly afterward, Tony is fired for stealing drug samples. Realizing he has hit rock bottom, he rededicates his life to God. Unknown to Elizabeth and Danielle, he has been keeping several samples for himself. He now realizes that he has to return them, even though it could potentially send him to prison. Tony's former boss is moved by his willingness to admit his wrongdoing and make amends, and decides not to press charges. Tony begins to show an interest in his daughter's jump roping skills and offers to participate with her and her friends in the upcoming double Dutch competition at the local community center. Tony's team takes second place in the competition creating a new bond between him and his daughter. Elizabeth successfully sells Miss Clara's house to a retired pastor who realizes someone has been praying in the closet. Shortly afterwards, Tony is offered a job as the director of the community center. Although the pay isn't nearly what he was making as a pharmaceutical salesman, he realizes that with the income from this new job combined with Elizabeth picking up extra work, the family can make a budget and survive.

The film ends with Tony giving Elizabeth her favorite dessert while he gives her a foot massage, something she loves, and Miss Clara, now living with her son, praying a powerful prayer in the still of the night.

Cast

• Priscilla Shirer as Elizabeth Jordan
• T.C. Stallings as Tony Jordan
• Karen Abercrombie as Miss Clara Williams
• Alex Kendrick as Coleman Young^[12]
• Michael Jr. as Michael
• Alena Pitts as Danielle Jordan
• Beth Moore as Mandy^[13]
• Tenae Downing as Veronica Drake
• Ben Davies as Policeman

Production

For this film, Alex and Stephen Kendrick decided to move away from Sherwood Pictures, the church based film production company which had previously produced their films. In part the brothers left because they felt that the movie-making was distracting from other parts of the church's ministry, with Alex telling the Hollywood Reporter that they felt "We were the elephant in the room."^[14] Instead the brothers produced the film through the company FaithStep Films and released through Sony pictures^[14] The brothers got their inspiration from prayer, with Alex stating that he believes even the idea of a war room was given to them by God.^[15]

Filming

Principal photography took place over a three-month period in summer 2014 in several North Carolina locations including Charlotte, Kannapolis, Concord, Hickory, and Birkdale Village in Huntersville.^[16][17] At Oakwood Cemetery in Concord, two different scenes set 40 years apart were filmed. Through special effects, the Charlotte skyline, larger trees and some additional headstones were added.^[18]

African-American portrayal

Initial plans had the main characters being white; however, Alex began having dreams about a predominantly African-American cast and, believing that God was trying to tell him something, the brothers switched the characters to make it more in line with Alex's dream.^[15] Early on, Sony expressed some concerns over a film with a mostly African-American cast produced by a white-led production company, but the brothers stuck to the premise.^[14]

Several characters in the film are African-American and being released only months after the Charleston church shooting, those involved with the film claim to believe that the timing of release is no coincidence. According to director Kendrick, when Affirm Films first saw the film, they claimed, "If this had been told with a different race, it would be a different movie."^[19]

Stallings, who plays a major role in the film, says, "There are many people out there—white and black—who stay with their families and work through their problems. They aren’t thugs or gang leaders. ’War Room’ tells the truth about society by showing the reverse of that stereotype. Racial tension is dangerous and people are dying and a lot of us want to see that stopped. We protest and speak out and tweet out, but this problem is much bigger than human beings. This movie will give people a way to take these problems to the Lord and show them that prayer is the best weapon to fight back."^[19]

Music

Provident Label Group and Sony Music Entertainment released a soundtrack with music from and inspired by the film^[20] and the film's original motion picture score by Paul Mills.^[21] They were both released on August 7, 2015.

Soundtrack

Score

All music composed by Paul Mills.

Release

Box office

Before its official nationwide release on August 28, 2015, War Room made an estimated $600,000 from Thursday night shows, which began at 7 p.m. in 1,017 theaters.^[23][24] On its opening day, the film grossed an estimated $4 million.^[25] In its opening weekend, the film grossed $11.4 million, more than double initial projections, finishing second at the box office behind third-week number one holder Straight Outta Compton ($13.1 million) with only 1/3 the number of theaters and twice the gross revenue per theater.^[26][27]

In its second weekend, the film finished first at the box office with $9,480,535,^[28] and became the first film to reach the number 1 spot at the North American box office with a gross of less than $10 million since The Possession reached number 1 in its second weekend with $9.31 million during the same weekend in 2012.^[29] Over its four-day Labor Day weekend, the film posted an 18% increase with a weekend total of $13,388,558 from 1,526 screens.^[30] It still ranked number 3 in its third week, increasing its screen count to 1,647 with revenue of $7,772,485 (18% drop). It increased it screen count by 295, but dropped to sixth place to $6,215,991.^[31]

As of May 2016, the film has grossed $67.8 million at North American theaters^[3] and $5.9 million in other territories^[3] for a worldwide total of $73.7 million.^[32] Production costs were just $3.5 million.^[33]

Critical response

War Room has received mostly negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 34%, based on reviews from 32 critics, with an average rating of 4.4/10.^[34] Metacritic gives the film a score of 26 out of 100, based on reviews from 11 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".^[35]

The Christian Post praised the film, calling it better than Courageous and Fireproof.^[36] According to Crosswalk.com "it comes as good news that War Room is a step up for the Kendricks, who continue to develop as filmmakers."^[37] Nick Olszyk of Catholic World Report similarly praised the film, writing it successfully portrayed "prayer... forgiveness, temptation, conversion, and, most importantly, the cosmic struggle between God and the devil that occur in every home and every heart."^[38]

The Los Angeles Times called the film more of a Bible study than anything else and "so heavy on broad pulpit pounding that it’s challenging to get swept away by the story’s message."^[17]

Home media

War Room was released on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on December 22, 2015.^[39] The film debuted in second place on the home video chart behind Minions.^[40] The following week, War Room reached the top spot of the home video sales chart.^[41]

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• Official website
• War Room at the Internet Movie Database
• War Room at the TCM Movie Database
• War Room at Box Office Mojo
• War Room at Rotten Tomatoes
• War Room at Metacritic