Product Details

• Actors: Lance Johnson, Scott Sandler, Elaine Hill, Richard Dutcher, Malayika Singley
• Directors: Richard Dutcher
• Format: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Spanish, English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Victory Multimedia
• DVD Release Date: November 14, 2006
• Run Time: 107.0 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000ES931U
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,430 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Rookie missionary Brandon Allen confronts the challenges of missionary life in Los Angeles, soon realizing that his most important convert may be himself.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God's Army Excellent Portrayal Of Spiritual Journey, December 9, 2000

By 

Les Gripkey (Boulder Creek, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God's Army (DVD)

God's Army is a spiritual journey made rich by the universal human struggles and strivings of the young people on that journey. Their questions, missteps, and mistakes make their yearning for, and grasping of the sacred powerful, and real. Although Richard Dutcher made this movie for a Mormon audience, I, a non-Mormon, loved it, as did a Muslim friend. God's Army has, in fact proved somewhat controversial in Mormon circles. While it's been very popular in Utah, with many finding the portrayal of Mormon missionary experience very true to life-- there is a minority who feel it's not proper to portray anything other than a sanitized picture of Mormonism to the outside world. Richard Ductcher, who produced and directed the film (as well as playing the part of ''Pops'' the oldest missionary) is a active Mormon who wrote this movie out of his own life experience--at different times he experienced the faith, doubt, joy, despair, miracles, etc. portrayed fictionally by the different characters in this film.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God's Army is excellent portrayal of spiritual journey, February 25, 2001

By 

Les Gripkey (Boulder Creek, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God's Army [VHS] (VHS Tape)

God's Army is a spiritual journey made rich by the universal human struggles and strivings of the young people on that journey. Their questions, missteps, and mistakes make their yearning for, and grasping of the sacred powerful, and real. Although Richard Dutcher made this movie for a Mormon audience, I, a non-Mormon, loved it, as did a Muslim friend. God's Army has, in fact proved somewhat controversial in Mormon circles. While it's been very popular in Utah, with many finding the portrayal of Mormon missionary experience very true to life-- there is a minority who feel it's not proper to portray anything other than a sanitized picture of Mormonism to the outside world. Richard Ductcher, who produced and directed the film (as well as playing the part of ''Pops'' the oldest missionary) is a active Mormon who wrote this movie out of his own life experience--at different times he experienced the faith, doubt, joy, despair, miracles, etc. portrayed fictionally by the different characters in this film.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Can't Please All the People All the Time, January 4, 2003

By 

Matthew W. Baker (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: God's Army (DVD)

I'm not quite sure what to say about this film. I would have given it two and a half stars, but that's not possible.

Writer/Director Richard Dutcher's project obviously faces some difficult constraints. After all, how do you present an experience--seriously, but without sanctimony--that is deeply personal and sacred for some, and seems like propaganda to others? Dutcher's film attempts to express the difficulty of faith and inner conflict involved in missionary service, without trivializing or sugar-coating it.

I'm inclined to say that he succeeds to a degree. Unfortunately, he tries to cram a mission worth of experience and growth into what seems like a couple weeks. The story's investigation of the main character's spiritual journey is too simplistic, but is far more real--tension-filled and conflict-ridden--than any Mormon church-sponsored production. Having served a mission myself, I can say that the tomfoolery depicted actually does exist, despite what many more serious types would say. And I can defend his relative lack of conventional missionary content (knocking doors all day, constant rejection, meetings and lessons, etc) by simply pointing out that Dutcher's character, Pops, is obviously not a conventional missionary. Even with its obvious shortcomings, I applaud Dutcher for his attempt to give voice to the joy, despair, hope, and trials of faith that, in turn, plague and buoy young Mormon missionaries.

However, it seems that many others, on both sides, would disagree. Many Mormons I know feel that it makes light of sacred things, and take exception to its loose portrayal of missionary life. Many non-Mormons take issue with the perceived frankness of its account and the implicit claims to truth. To the former I would say, my experience (and apparently Dutcher's) seems to differ from yours; try to be more open-minded. As for the latter, I'm not sure what they would be expecting. The movie clearly advertises its Mormon content. I would hope by now that people in the world would be working toward a modicum of flexibility in trying to at least understand, if not appreciate, worldviews that differ from theirs. I'm pretty sure Dutcher's film was not meant to shove Mormonism in your face. Must an affirmation of one man's faith necessarily threaten that of the audience?

In the end, I'm not sure if this type of attempt to present Mormon missionary experience to a mainstream audience could ever be truly successful, in terms of popular reception. A mission is such a profoundly personal experience, most of it gets lost in translation. Music and well-intentioned melodrama are poor media for expressing such feelings. But I'm glad people like Dutcher are at least making the attempt, however flawed. There are far too few movies that actually take religion seriously, on its own terms.