Little Boy ~ Big Faith
Learn How to Believe Once Again!
ROMA DOWNEY, MARK BURNETT & EDUARDO VERASTEGUI
EXCEL IN JOINT VENTURE
One of the most heartwarming, and inspiring movies of early 2015, was the joint venture between Roma Downey and Mark Burnett (The Bible, and A.D. the miniseries) along with Eduardo Verastegui in the production of the “Little Boy” movie.
Verastequi, who plays the youthful Father Crispin, in his own film, is best known for his anti-abortion film “Bella” (2006) and "The Butterfly Circus" (2009). All his movies have strong faith and
family themes, messages, and undertones.
“Little Boy” had a tremendous
amount of humor as well! Set in the 1940’s, World War II era, in Southern California,
Little Boy is the younger child of two boys fathered by an "All-American Man". With a
white picket fence around his beautifully-kept middle-class home, and lovely
wife, he works very hard with his hands at his own auto-mechanic shop.
He is drafted and called off to War, during the time in California,
when President Franklin Roosevelt had interned over 110,000
Japanese-Americans into camps. This fact will be significant
as the storyline of “Little Boy” progresses.
The amazingly stunning
fishing village where this story unfolds was actually filmed in Baja
California, Mexico, an area untouched by all the crazy stuff we now associate with
most of California. My friend Twinas Latinas Cheri, was associated with the making of this
movie (filmed in 2011) and had communicated her excitement about working on this Christian film, and the long-anticipated movie-theater premier. I remarked it sure would be a beautiful
community in which to live right now!
The idyllic
setting of this "American" ocean-front hometown (filmed at Baja Studios) belies the intense
interplay between a lively 8 year old Pepper Busbee (Jakob Salvati) who is
apparently doomed to be vertically challenged, as are nearly one third of
the adults and other kids in the town. Pepper and his dad James Busbee
(Michael Rapaport) spend a huge amount of quality father/son time
together, which was a purposeful statement about the times when men were men, and family meant
community; a time when life was more meaningful, and less complicated.
That simple existence
actually covered up some of the dark nature of the soul of men, such as hatred,
racism, bullying, greed, adultery, and more. The latter came in the form
of the town's medic, Dr. Fox (played by Mall Cop himself, Kevin
James). However Dr. Fox used the occasion of James Busbee going off to war
to commence intentional flirtation with Mrs. Busbee (Emily Watson) to seek
her feminine favor.
Pepper was bullied by the grossly overweight, only
son of Dr. Fox, about everything, but especially for being
short. Hatred was the soft underbelly of those who hated others for being different. And violent racism broke out when Pepper and his mother reached out to the
hard-crusted, unlovable Japanese-American Hashimoto (Cary-Hiroyuki
Tagawa) at the time of Pearl Harbor and internment camps, which landed the older Busbee boy (David Henrie) in jail.
The "Little Boy" movie, with its beautiful
settings, period-piece wardrobe and props, was a quality production with a
$20 million dollar budget, showing the perfect dichotomy between God’s
Creation of perfection, and man’s sinful nature. This is where
Verastegui shines in all of his films, by introducing faith.
Not just any
faith, but faith in the only God of Heaven, the God of Christians, known as Jesus Christ.
Faith is the only bridge between man’s depraved human nature and the
immaculate perfection of God, which was fulfilled at the
Cross, where Jesus gave His life for us all.
To read more of his compelling "Little Boy" movie review, make sure to visit Bernie's website, and ask him to help lead you to the Lord. Learn to believe, all over again, and please receive God's free gift of Salvation in these final days. You'll be glad you did!
Also see Bernie's review of Hollywood's version of Exodus (from the truth?)
Bernie Lutchman's Family Ministry site - be a part of his outreach ministry Businessmen in Christ, and watch his weekly Christian TV program Plumbline.
Pick up a copy of his book "Danger Zone", then follow +BernieLutchman on Google+, on Facebook he's under Bernie Lutchman Jr., and on Twitter @BernieLutchman
