Unsung Hero: A Review

UNSUNG HERO

Family bonds stretch and strain but do not break in Unsung Hero. The true-life story of a foreign family that brought not one but two of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM)'s biggest names will ultimately move the viewer regardless of the viewer's background. 

David Smallbone (codirector and cowriter Joel Smallbone) has a highly successful music promoting career in his native Australia. He also has a very large family. He and his wife Helen (Daisy Betts) have six in total (a seventh comes in later). David and Helen are Christian, with David specializing in bringing Christian music acts Down Under. However, his efforts to bring in Christian music superstar Amy Grant bomb big time. Ticket sales are lukewarm at best. While he was able to sell out Stryper at the Sydney Opera House, Grant couldn't even muster a fifth of the opera house's capacity.

That, along with a major national economic downturn, brings the Smallbone family to financial ruin. David thinks that he has a potential deal with Carman, another Christian music superstar. However, that requires him to move to Nashville, Tennessee. Helen will not stay behind, so the entire family leaves all they know to go to the States. They go to the land of opportunity with little in terms of opportunity or money. Worse, they come dangerously close to being deported when one of the kids says that they plan to stay two years instead of the six months their visas say that they will stay. 

Fortunately, they do make it to Nashville. Unfortunately, the hoped-for deal falls through. Now strangers in a strange land, the Smallbones now have to adjust. David continues working to build up and provide for his family. He accidentally creates a lawncare business. He is quietly irritated to depend on the kindness of church members. Church choir director Jed Albright (Lucas Black) and his wife Kay (Candace Cameron Bure) are kind. However, David quietly chafes at their repeated benevolence. David's father James (Terry O'Quinn) does his best to remind his son that family is not in the way. It is the way. 

James, however, cannot help David and Helen overcome other issues. There is David's very fraught relationship with Christian music performer Eddie DeGarmo (Jonathan Jackson). DeGarmo still holds a bit of a grudge over when David rejected his group DeGarmo and Key for an Australian tour in favor of Grant. Now, David has to do DeGarmo's yardwork while his oldest daughter Rebecca (Kirrilee Berger) cleans his toilet.   

Rebecca, however, has natural singing talent. While shy, she can rally enough to perform. She and the other Smallbones put their faith in God. David puts his in himself. When Rebecca finds that DeGarmo has created his own music label, she and the others think this could be a sign. Will David swallow his pride enough to let Rebecca's natural talent outweigh his growing depression? Will Joel be forever condemned to sing alongside his brother Luke?

One of Unsung Hero's greatest flaws is that the audience is expected to know everything about everyone in the film. The film has an early scene of Stryper taking the stage. In quick succession, there is mention of Stryper, DeGarmo & Key and Amy Grant. At the end of the film, there is something of an inside joke about how Joel has to sing with Luke. The inside joke is that Joel and Luke Smallbone make up the CCM group For King & Country. People familiar with both For King & Country and Rebecca St. James (Rebecca Smallbone's stage name in tribute to her grandfather) might find the quip amusing. Those unfamiliar with For King & Country might be downright puzzled by this seemingly offhand remark. 

As a result, some of Unsung Hero is a bit too much "inside baseball". It is almost as if Joel Smallbone (cowriting and directing with Richard L. Ramsey) did not fully trust their potential audiences. They could trust the Christian audience (or at least most of them, as I would not recognize a For King & Country song off the bat). They could not trust a more secular audience. There are other curious elements in Unsung Hero that I found a bit off.

The film starts with the Smallbones awaiting possible deportation to Australia, then we go back 15 years earlier only to come back to where we started about 21 minutes into the film. Once there, Unsung Hero goes in a straightforward manner. I was puzzled over why Smallbone and Ramsey did not opt for a totally straightforward story. It also has some drama when Helen suffers complications when giving birth to their last child. The film comes dangerously close to suggesting that she will not make it. Spoiler alert: she does and so does baby Libby (who cameos as the nurse who brings baby Libby to her parents). We also get a cameo from St. James herself as a Quantas airline stewardess.

No cameo from Joel Smallbone, who plays his own father in Unsung Hero. Joel Smallbone is working hard to build up an acting career to go along with his music career. He had a role in Journey to Bethlehem and will appear in the upcoming George Washington biopic Young Washington. I will say that Joel Smallbone did a very good job playing his father. Granted, no one outside the Smallbone circle knows how close or far the younger Smallbone was in accurately portraying the Smallbone family patriarch. Still, one does feel for this proud man brought low, but who eventually pulls through. 

A nice touch is how David never fully integrated into American culture. He would keep to his "G'day" to greet people. He would refer to having a family large enough to field a cricket team. These two things would be mostly a mystery to the Southerners that he dealt with. 

Unsung Hero is supposed to be about the matriarch, Helen. However, in a curious turn, it seemed that the film focused more on David than on Helen. That is not to say that Daisy Betts gave a bad performance or that Helen Smallbone was shunted off to the side. It is just that I think Unsung Hero looks upon David's problems more than on Helen's. 

In other roles, I think that Joel Smallbone still harbors a bit of resentment towards Eddie DeGarmo. Why else portray him as a bit whacked-out and wigged out? DeGarmo looks odd to where one might think he was on substances. He did not look good and seemed surprisingly bitter about being ditched in favor of Amy Grant all these years later. That is how Jonathan Jackson played Eddie DeGarmo. 

Lucas Black and Candace Cameron Bure were underused as the Smallbone family friends. However, they did well enough in their small roles.

Terry O'Quinn and Kirrilee Berger for their parts were the unsung heroes of Unsung Hero. The former kept a solid Australian accent. He also kept to the more spiritual, hopeful aspect of Unsung Hero, working to remind his son of how important family is. Berger's Rebecca Smallbone/St. James was equally moving. Her rendition of You Make Everything Beautiful at her second audition will move the viewer. That scene includes footage that the Smallbones had shot throughout their lives. That was a very nice and well-crafted touch. 

Curiously, for a film that is geared as "faith-based", I would argue that Unsung Hero has little to do with Christ. It takes over half an hour for the family to so much as sing a hymn. There is little in terms of church attendance. I did not have to have them shout "JESUS MAN!" all over the place. I was, however, a bit surprised that Christ was not as big in Unsung Hero as I thought He would be. 

Unsung Hero takes its time to work its way to the viewer. A bit of a rocky start does not take away from the overall effect of the film. A tribute to parents who sacrifice for their children, Unsung Hero is a love letter to a mother and father from their children. It is true: too often our parents are our unsung heroes and heroines. Unsung Hero does well in reminding us of the power of love, mixed with faith. 

David and Helen Smallbone

DECISION: B+