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Film Search
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The word “miracle” in the title is a reminder of why stories meant to inspire the faithful can also make for weak cinema: Miracles make for pretty inert drama. Writer/director T.C. Christensen's story is based on real-life events in 1986, when a small Wyoming ranching community was terrorized by a lunatic with a grudge (Nathan Stevens) and his wife (Kymberley Mellen) taking the local elementary school hostage—and the manner in which the crisis ends leads local sheriff Ron Hartley (Jasen Wade), who has been experiencing a crisis of faith, to explore seemingly unexplainable events. Christensen weaves a few genuinely tense moments into his portrayal of the conditions inside the school, but the narrative faces a huge structural barrier in that the end of the crisis isn't the end of the movie. Instead, there's still an hour to spend on Hartley gradually coming to terms with the possibility that divine intervention saved innocent lives—and it's hard to imagine this avalanche of evidence mattering to anyone who didn't already believe before entering the theater that Jesus loves the little children.
Director: T.C. Christensen
Producer: T.C. Christensen and Ron Tanner
Cast: Nathan Stevens, Jasen Wade, Caitlin E.J. Meyer, Mason Davis, Anson Bagley, Sarah Kent, Grace Hallows and Joshua Cooper
Producer: T.C. Christensen and Ron Tanner
Cast: Nathan Stevens, Jasen Wade, Caitlin E.J. Meyer, Mason Davis, Anson Bagley, Sarah Kent, Grace Hallows and Joshua Cooper
