Amazing Love (2012) Online

I was unsure about this movie as far a Christian movie. Once we started it we realized that this was going to be sort of a comedy. I have led many youth trips and several into the woods, and this really hit the dynamic really well. I won't lie and say the acting was good, but the story was. I liked the combining of two movies. One about a youth trip and the other about the prophet Hosea. It was a movie that really communicated the love of Christ for us. I would recommend this as a family safe movie that is moving for a small group.

This movie starts out with a small group of campers from a church going camping and one "outsider" coming along for the trip against her will. She does not want to fit in nor do some of those on the trip care if she does. Through the intervention of the youth leader and his wife and of course a wonderful bible story, hearts are changed.

This film is basically two movies in one: the story of modern teenagers on a Christian retreat in the woods, and the story of Hosea's struggles with his wife and his people in the Old Testament. The Hosea scenes have excellent acting, beautiful scenery, and a deep and powerful plot. The camping-teenagers scenes have cheesy dialogue and terrible acting. It's worth sitting (or fast-forwarding) through the one plot to get to the other. This movie is deep and mature, while still having little sex, violence, or profanity, which is not the case of so much trash produced these days. If you want a clean flick that will make you think, this one's a keeper. I typically dislike Christian movies despite being a devout Christian, because they typically have terrible acting and cheesy dialogue, but the Hosea parts are different. Note that though this movie is clean and is based on scripture, I don't think it's suited for young children. The plot deals with prostitution and adultery (none of it acted on-screen). Kids would just be confused.

I was very impressed and touched by this movie"Amazing Love".It is so good to see how God's heart is so much for man. God is very patient, He never forces us but waits for us to turn our heart to Him.Unconditional love that God has for us. Today so many especially young people are looking for this. They may not know what they are looking for though.God put this desire within each man to know Him and express Him. The time of Hosea was very much like the days of Noah and also the same as the age we live in today. I am going to recommend this movie to my grandchildren. Thank you for producing a movie that makes you feel encouraged.

Great dramatization of Hosea and a story of the enduring love that God has for us. His redemption comes at our moment of deepest shame. This one will seem schmaltzy to the casual Christian and the unbeliever because they just won't understand why/how this message is so beautiful.

Yes the acting in the modern day sections is marginal, and it shows that it had a pretty small budget. However, this is not the reason it is worth your time to see this film.

What I do find silly is that I need to give 10 lines of review material for a film that worth a watch because is simply not typical Hollywood tripe, with either sex, violence, rife profanity or the ever-popular combination of all three. Oh well, there's my 10...

Amazing Love is a great movie. The "current" teenage actors were annoying but all the flashbacks were really well done. I could have watched a whole movie focusing on Hosea. That is where the movie really shined. The story of Hosea really brings home Christ's love for us. The teenagers had me rolling my eyes most of the time,they were all such clichés. I think this is a wonderful movie to show to youth groups. As much as I love Sean Astin even he could not improve the acting around him. The Bible parts were really good but I felt like had they concentrated more on that they could have fleshed it out more. I think the story of Hosea is very relevant in today's world and deserved a whole movie of his story not just inserted into this movie.Still it's worth seeing just for the Hosea parts.

I really liked this movie. Everything was very very believable. At first glance I thought this movie would be tacky Christian movie with a cheap ploy at the end to believe in Christ. I have been on Christian retreats and the things in this movie were spot on. Absolutely spot on. From the dialogue of the young youth groupers, messing with kids while sleeping, fishing, gather round the campfire stories, the goodie goodie Steve, the meek and quiet spirited Beth, the video game playing Gameboy, the token black kid Coop, the mean yet repentant Carrie, the caring youth group leader Samwise Gamgee...err Stuart, and the forced to go on a Christian retreat Ashley. GREAT acting!

Stuarts first hippie lesson sucked, but then he did the story of Hosea. I was like woah. Amen! Amen once again! God's heart is broken. God loves his people with an amazing and unconditional love and wants them to return to Him yet they reject Him and are like an ungrateful and unthankful harlot. God needed a man - Hosea to have his heart broken like His to be touched with His feeling in order to prophecy against them because He would come in to chastise them in order for the to return to Him.

The Book of Hosea is one of the most compelling books of the Bible for a number of reasons, one of which is because it's a love story, so it's bound to resonate with everyone on some level. So for this film, a camping trip is used to contextualize the story.

It begins with a few young Christians taken to the wilderness for a weekend by none other than Sean Astin, a great casting choice. The core group gets along well enough, but one character is outed because she's different on the surface. With that said, the characters aren't the selling point, but I think they do good enough of a job that they don't weigh down the meat of the story, which is the story of Hosea.

In it, we get an interesting depiction of Hosea, the trials he endured with his wife Gomer, and the relation it had to God and Israel (or His people in general.) We're taken through the story while the characters react to it in a way that I believe teens actually would. They don't agree with God's ways at first, but once they understand the depths of love He has for us, it seems to make more sense. Willingness to sacrifice. The acting and sets in the ancient scenes are also quite good.

The camping trip may seem to be the weaker element at first, but the characters grow on you because they experience their own changes and growth; but as for the depiction of Hosea and his life, those scenes are engaging and compelling. Additionally, the youth scenes contrast the more serious parts for the sake of pacing and variety, as well as relatability.

Overall, it's pretty good. Not perfect, but the message was what mattered because Hosea's story is touching and poignant.

The cast are known for star roles today. Filmed well. I am a committed Christian, and showed this with a friend who is not a Christian and he commented about the cast.

Most may see this is just as another Christian flick. Worse yet, an *indie* Christian flick (and there's very few I've seen worth watching at all). What caught my attention about it wasn't first that it has Sean Astin in it (famous for being in The Goonies and Lord of the Rings), but that the screenplay is done by Greg Mitchell, a recent addition to my favorite authors list (for his Coming Evil trilogy- The Strange Man, Enemies of the Cross, Dark Hour- and his YA sci-fi novel Rift Jump). Even though the main storyline takes place in this time and age, the necessary story takes place in the Book of Hosea, a rarely taught-upon Old Testament book. My guess is churches don't like the idea of teaching that God would even love a prostitute, but in the Book of Hosea, that's what God tells Hosea to do. Not only that, but said prostitute, Gomer, had been considered one of the 100 most beautiful women in all the world of her time. So, why does this story have relevance to Sean Astin's youth pastor's story? Because, after an accident happens to make highly superficial teenage girl Ashley blow up in the face of the other kids, and she challenges them all that they don't know anything about how it feels to have her life, he gives a nice tale of Hosea. But it's not the "Sunday school" version some may have heard. In other words, it's not watered down, it's actually fleshed-out for people to understand very well. How can one know, without reading the Bible that it's fleshed out? One of the campers says he's read Hosea and doesn't remember a part of the story that the pastor mentions. And the pastor admits that what he says isn't in there, but he's giving certain details in there to make it more appreciated for what will happen. Granted, it's not the edgy type of Christian flick like To Save A Life, but it's still interesting enough to catch attention for people who could care less about how others think of them. Yes, it's indie, but not all the performance would tip that off. In fact, even the most typical people (character-wise) have differentials that make them more believable. With the Hosea story, every detail is not only believable, but also historically accurate, notably the time period that the Jews had turned from God and worshiped pagan idols and judged superficially rather than relying on God. In the end, it became a tearjerker, not only with what Hosea does to have Gomer back in his arms and show true agape (unconditional love), but also a shocking secret revealed by the youth pastor's wife and how it all ties to make Hosea all that much more relevant.

Well written and engaging movie that creatively unlocks the beautiful story of Hosea and Gomer. Well done!

Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea shows what happens when you have a lack of confidence in your idea of devoting a full-length film to a biblical character many are likely unfamiliar with, and instead, sacrifice its potential by including a needless story-arc that cheapens what should be your primary story. To give an example, imagine if Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ opened, closed, and was frequently interrupted by people telling the story of Jesus's crucifixion around a campfire.

The point is, these frequent cuts during the primary story and attempts to develop a needless story arc distract and oversimplify the core material. Whenever we find ourselves truly involved with Hosea's story, we must resort to cutting back between a youth group and their leaders telling the story around a campfire only for one or more of the teenagers to make some stupid comment about what the characters should do in an unrealistic fashion using "hip" dialog. The youth group is led by Sean Astin's Stuart and the kids are optimistic and nice-guy Steve (Kenton Duty), emotionally fragile Carrie (Sammi Hanratty), the smooth black guy Cooper (Terrence Hardy, Jr.), the game-addicted "Gameboy" (he's seriously never given a real name, played by Creagen Dow), and surly and disinterested Ashley (Savannah Jayde), whom is dragged by Stuart and his wife Beth (Fireproof's Erin Bethea) after learning of Ashley's unfortunate tribulations in life. Ashley has a mother who has had an umpteenth number of boyfriends in a short frame of time, and she shuns personal connections by listening to her music, doing her makeup, and writing off any nice gestures as annoying interactions with people beneath her.

When we see the way the four kids interact with one another, and how Ashley possesses a lack of interest in everything going on, we can see that this sort of contention and lack of a stable bond will immediately direct us to development on the film's subtitle, which tells the biblical story of Hosea (played by Elijah Alexander). The biblical period piece aspect of the film is admittedly a bit cheesy and low budget, but it's the heart of the film and bears its strongest parts. One gets the sense director Kevin Downes and the trio of writers (Dave Christiano, Rich Christiano, and Greg Mitchell) wanted to make the entire film about the story of Hosea, however, felt a bit of a biting sense of urgency to include elements that modernized the overall product with predictable characters and Sean Astin's namesake just to be able to attract more people to the film.

If that's the case, from a business standpoint, I totally understand. From a film analyzing and reviewing standpoint, I still cannot recommend Amazing Love. The film is very poorly conceived when it must rely on its modern actors to carry the story, infusing the story with typical pitfalls and vague personalities rather than characters, and even though it's pretty audacious to note that a film part of Christian cinema recognizes something like a mother flirting and dating numerous men, it's almost insulting how quickly and casually it is dismissed when it is brought up. Sean Astin's presence alone is fun during these moments, but even he can't liven an inherently dry story arc.

When concerned with the scenes involving Hosea, we are given Elijah Alexander's capable but ultimately forgettable performance against a backdrop and setting that feels like a live action mock-up for a new "Biblical Times" themed-park. It's passable, and ultimately the most interesting part of the story, but given the fact that this focus seems to play second-in-line to its modernized counterpart, it doesn't get enough time to get richer, more hearty themes off the ground.

At a paltry seventy-five minutes, Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea certainly can't be judged as a time burden, but given the amount of films released every year, and how many of them that are outstanding and go criminally under the radar, one needs to recognize that time spent on this is detracting from unseen films. However, youth groups and churches will undoubtedly appreciate this film, even if on a basic level, for its inclusion of two ostensibly different worlds that wind up intersecting for a feature film.

Starring: Sean Astin, Erin Bethea, Elijah Alexander, and Savannah Jayde, Kenton Duty, Sammi Hanratty, Terrence Hardy, Jr., and Creagen Dow. Directed by: Kevin Downes.

The producing brothers Christiano and director Kevin Downes who've given us Christian films of varying quality team up to give us essentially two short films woven together as a feature film. The first is a story of the prophet Hosea and what God inflicted on him to make a point to the rest of us that stars Erik Alexander as the prophet and Tehmina Sunny as his slattern of a wife Gomer. That is a girl's name in the Bible and its not a doofus gas jockey who becomes a Marine.

The second is a modern story of youth pastor Sean Astin who takes five of his young parishioners on a camping retreat. One of them is a troubled young girl who also has a Gomer like mother, but whose Dad took off years ago. Mother has taken up with a lot of men in her time to get the material things of life and daughter Savannah Jayde is imitating mom. It's Jayde who is in need of some unconditional love as Astin sees it and he spins the story of Hosea round the campfire.

The lesson to be drawn is that God's love is eternal and unconditional. It's why Hosea was commanded to marry Gomer whom he really had the hots for, but who was carrying on while he was in the prophecy business which doesn't take in too much money. The love that Hosea shows Gomer is the love that Jesus brings to all mankind upon acceptance. In the end Gomer realizes she does have a good man at home.

Personally I think that God was asking an awful lot of Hosea especially since by his Hebrew law the woman should have been stoned for adultery. But that's the story and in the end Jayde does see the point and accepts all the others in love.

This is a technique to make a point in film that goes all the way back to D.W. Griffth and Cecil B. DeMille in the silent era. Amazing Love isn't quite in that league, but it's a sincerely made effort with an attractive cast and decent performances.