By: Anthony Zangrillo
On September 26th, the film Believe Me will be released theaters and video on demand. I had the pleasure of seeing it during a press screening of the film along with the cast and director.
The film tells us about a college senior named Sam (Alex Russell of Chronicle) who is quite the popular guy on campus. During a meeting with his counselor played by the hilarious Nick Offerman, reveals that Sam is in the hole for thousands of dollars in an unpaid tuition bill, which will affect his dreams of attending law school. Sam with the help of his friends Pierce, Tyler and Baker (played by Miles Fisher, Sinqua Walls and Max Adler respectively) discover that the best way to raise the money is by creating their own fake charity and exploiting a church going audience.
Once they get their charity going, Ken (played by Christopher McDonald) who runs a charity campaign across the country and recruits the guys to join his campaign approaches them. As the film goes on, Sam develops feelings for the tour manager Callie played by Johanna Braddy. She soon discovers what Sam and his friends have been up too the whole tour. Gabriel, who is played by Zachary Knighton, was responsible for Callie’s discover since Gabriel too had feelings for Callie and was attempting to create a separation between Sam and Callie.
The film concludes with Sam and Gabriel to a certain degree agreeing to a truce in order to keep the campaign going and making amends with what Sam did. It also made Sam reflect and figure out whether he actually does believe the words he’s been preaching throughout the tour.
Personally speaking, independent films have been on the rise as of late as being more interesting and attention grabbing than some huge production films. This film definitely was quite an impressive film. I do not consider this film a Christian film, it’s more of a somewhat realistic film that shows the struggle that college students go through yearly and what desperation can due to an individual.
During a Q & A with the cast, the spoke about a variety of topics in creating this movie. My question to them was “What obstacles did they come across in bringing this film to life?” Alex Russell kindly responded, “Time, as an actor, I never felt too rushed in the short time we had”. Director Will Bakke went on to say, “we only had 19 days to film this movie we turned the camera on and we didn’t stop.”
Overall, I would recommend this film if you’re definitely looking for a hilarious comedy film that you could also somewhat relate to when or currently have tuition problems to deal with.
8.5/10
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