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An Officer and a Christian Man
by Richard Horgan |
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11/12/2009 at 5:53:29 PM |
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At age 73, actor Lou Gossett Jr. still packs a considerable punch, as demonstrated by his busy current filming schedule. And if all goes well, the Oscar-winner will soon be following in the box office footsteps of two-time Golden Globe nominee Kirk Cameron with the cleverly titled spring 2010 Christian drama The Grace Card, currently shooting in Memphis.
"We look at this project as Fireproof 2.0," explains screenwriter Howard Klausner (Space Cowboys), who recently moved from Los Angeles back to his hometown of Nashville. "The Sherwood Baptist guys have opened up a door for all of us, proving that faith-based features can stand up in the marketplace... Maybe it’s just because so few films coming out of Hollywood reflect the values we [Christians] hold dear."
For good luck perhaps, Klausner and his colleagues cast a familiar face from Fireproof, actor-youth pastor Stephen Dervan (the hot sauce-drinking firefighter), to provide some brief comic relief. But the bulk of The Grace Card is about the on-the-job interactions of Sam Wright (Michael Higgenbottom), a Memphis police officer by day and preacher at his grandafther’s (Gossett) church on Sundays, with embittered white partner Mac MacDonald (Michael Joiner).
The Grace Card is the brainchild of David Evans, a Memphis based producer of live Christian events who is relying on members of his church for assistance with everything from carpentry to catering. "One of our most important scenes takes place in a predominantly black Memphis church," he teases. "Without giving the plot away, actors, crew and hundreds of extras from both black and white congregations were hugging each other and crying because of the subject matter [of racial reconciliation]."
[Photo courtesy of GraceCardMovie.com.]
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