Review – Bad Counselors

Faith-based films continue to be one of the strangest genres in filmmaking. Though at its prime major Hollywood studios were producing their own sub-studios to appeal to American evangelicals, the genre has shifted over time. What began as pastors self-funding family friendly films has evolved into the Angel Studios model of financing and distribution. It’s a genre that started modest and created The Chosen. As it stands, it continues to pump out curious little films.

Content Guide

Violence/Scary Images: There’s a scene of a fire. Depictions of drunkenness.
Language/Crude Humor: Some PG-13 language.
Drug/Alcohol References: Partying and heavy drinking are a major plot point and are depicted on screen, with the film interrogating the theological implications of college partying.
Sexual Content: Nothing is depicted but crude references are made several times, with several male characters working through their emotional interest in two female characters.
Spiritual Content: The film is faith-based and explores the spiritual lives of college-aged evangelicals.
Other Negative Content: Limited to none.
Positive Content: Strong theological themes, and themes of growth and transformation.

Review

Faith-based filmmaking has entered a fascinating new era. As I’ve previously argued, the genre has entered something of an edgy adolescent phase. Film critic Tyler Smith once argued that the genre was evolving in real time, beginning with films like God’s Not Dead and Facing the Giants and growing in sophistication and maturity. While there are examples of films like Jesus Revolution that prove this, the opposite is also true. Controversial films like The Sound of Freedom have shown the genre capable of producing angsty, provocative, and superficially dark movies.

Thusly, a film like Bad Counselors initially gave me pause. The film’s title font and trailer gave me a concerning impression that Christian filmmaking was about to delve into its first raunchy comedy (à la Superbad or Van Wilder). Thankfully, this impression was totally wrong. Though a PG-13 comedy with some non-family elements, Bad Counselors is also a genuinely funny film that manages to simultaneously lionize the Christian walk while goofing on the eccentricities of American Evangelicalism.

Set against the amusingly titled Camp Burning Bush, the film follows the lives of two frat boys facing serious criminal charges after a night of college drinking results in serious destruction. In a desperate bid to avoid harsher punishment, Grayson and Tyler agree to take on 120 hours of community service over spring break, and do so by pretending to be youth counselors at a Christian children’s camp, where they struggle to bluff their way through their ignorance and find themselves romantically connecting to the female counterparts, one of them being the pastor’s daughter.

From the outset, it’s clear our protagonists know nothing about modern Christianity. One of the best scenes early in the production involves them walking into a contemporary worship service, thinking it was a drinking party, and shockingly declaring that they didn’t think this was what church looked like. In another scene, they attempt to do research on this culture by attending a hilariously bad, egocentric megachurch to try and understand how to mimic this subculture.

Though sympathetic, the film similarly portrays Evangelical culture as naive, impulsive, embarrassing, and odd, albeit more emotionally mature and vigilant than it leads on. Many of its archetypes are familiar to anyone who has spent time in megachurches: young men struggling to connect with young women who “aren’t in a dating season”, young women eager for coffee dates and sudden engagements with eligible men, showy expressions of faith around a campfire, soulful acoustic melodies, etc.

There is recognition of the kinds of young people who engage in this culture and the awkwardness they get caught up in as they fumble godly relationships, that comes from a place of authenticity. Contrasting with the drunken ambition of our leads, it’s a fairly honest depiction of the reality of the disconnect between mainstream secular culture and contemporary Christianity, but it mines this disconnect for fish-out-of-water drama and pathos. 

As with most faith-based movies, the plot is ultimately a story of transformation. It doesn’t take long in the story for our leads to start connecting sincerely with the lessons they’re teaching and feel guilt for their actions. Similarly, others slowly begin to recognize that they’re not acting fully sincere and things rapidly escalate.

Despite its edgy exterior and some crude humor, Bad Counselors is a wonderfully wholesome little movie. It mostly avoids the pitfalls of preachy moralizing and sermonizing (shy of two scenes), finds the inherent pathos of its core concept, and proves consistently funny. It’s confident and successful in a way that punches above its modest weight!