Sorry, this movie sucks

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Darren Wilson's "Holy Ghost" is like Christian "Crocodile Hunter", in which a band of white, Christian American males set out to prove the existence of the Holy Ghost. There is no script, no plan. The film's tagline is "Can the Holy Spirit direct a movie?" In a word: no.Traveling across the globe with his fans' Kickstarter money, Darren Wilson and crew basically perform Christian Criss Angel street "magic" (but without even the illusion of anything happening), approaching strangers, praying with some and performing "miracles" (which is in parentheses because they are not medically verified). The screws of the already painful Criss Angel schtick are tightened further on the viewer when these street evangelists become like medium John Edward in their aggressive interrogation of the recipients of their prayers, pelting them with questions like: "Did you feel that? What did you feel? Tell me what you felt?" It's clear the recipients are pressured into saying they felt something, that the "healings" actually worked.The Christian street magic is interspersed with a curious debate about "cessationism". For the vast majority of the world which has no idea what this term means, cessationism is the belief among some Christian sects that when Jesus Christ's apostles died, the Holy Ghost went with them, departing this world. The makers of this film don't believe in cessationism and eat up valuable screen time making a point that, to most viewers, doesn't have to be made.As the Crusaders venture abroad, the stories of "miracles" continue, leading up to the grand climax -- a visit to Varanasi, India ("the oldest city in the world" as Wilson proclaims. Actually, the oldest city in the world is Damascus) where they intend to worship Jesus in a Hindu temple on the banks of the Ganges and to pray for people there. Wilson admits that he'd been told that to attempt this would be "suicide". This is where the militants live "and Christians were not allowed". The intercut interviews, afterward, with the crew shows a near-giddiness at the prospect of running into opposition. The guys sound almost hopeful that they will be attacked. The Regional Director of TellAsia Ministries says to that go to this region and openly worships Jesus could well lead to someone being killed.Quite a build up.A Christian musician in the group sits out in public and plays some songs near the Ganges. As would happen anywhere in the world, people are drawn to the music. The filmmaker believes it's more than that -- it's the Holy Ghost. After a modest crowd gathers to listen, the musician walks down narrow lanes, singing, playing. The group soon move on to a temple where the Buddha had once preached and a bigger crowd gathers.As the musician plays, an evangelist works the crowd "healing" people.The closest the group comes to a kerfuffle of any kind is at this temple. The musician sits upon some ancient stone structure and plays his guitar. People come forward to shake his hand. He shakes hands with them. Then comes The Moment. Some guy comes forward and instead of shaking hands, he tries to pull the musician from his perch! As has been done throughout the film -- particularly during the street magic section -- the drama is completely overblown.The arrogance and cultural insensitivity at the heart of this excursion to India cannot be understated. This gaggle of white Christian men trample through some of India's holiest sites as though moving through the food court of a mall in California. They fully expect hostility -- they invite it with their actions -- but have no understanding why it might occur. Xenophobia runs high in the descriptions of where the group is going and what they plan to do. The end result is a dramatic fizzle that only compounds the widely held view that white Christian American men really don't have any respect for anyone's culture or practices but their own.The film ends with an equally stark, incongruous and indelible image. With the remainder of the fans' Kickstarter money, Wilson and crew go to Rome, Italy. Rad evangelist Todd White walks right into what is described as a "Roman mob". Really? A mob? It's a march. From the looks of it, it was a completely peaceful march richly interspersed with good looking women. Talk about going into the lion's den! Undaunted by the peacefulness or the beautiful women, White wades in saying he's going to touch as many people as possible and doesn't even care if he gets punched in the face. It's unclear why he would think Christians are under fire in Italy, given the fact that the Vatican is located there and Christianity has flourished there for millennia. But even among friends, white Christian American males feel threatened.In a stunning, but unsurprisingly ego-maniacal move, White sees a guy carrying a megaphone and risks a punch in the face by asking to use it. As with the militants in India, he is met with absolutely no opposition. The guy hands over the megaphone without question. White proceeds to shout "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" into the mic.What humility! That moment completely embodies the film.Darren Wilson and his crew set out to find the Holy Ghost and found their egos instead.

Did you read the description of this thing? Did you read it? Read it now, I'll wait... ...Okay so how was I supposed to make a movie, I'm a disembodied spirit. And editing, don't get me started on editing. How am I supposed to edit? I have no fingers. I HAVE NO FINGERS.And who is this director? I never heard of him. Did you ever hear of him? And cheeky. He claims to know me. He doesn't know me.And talk about raising unrealistic expectations, calling me HOLY Ghost. Don't call me HOLY Ghost. My name is Ghost. Holy Ghost is my slave name.Kind regards, Ghost

So GOD actually made this movie, seriously? What kind of a marketing trick is that? Sounds like blasphemy to my (Catholic) ears. Just because HE doesn't interfere with our worldly matters and lets us have our way, we don't automatically have permission to attribute lukewarm and uninspired films like this to HIM, do we? As it says in the storyline given above: no plan, no script - oh, yes, and no inspiration either. It's one thing to go on a mission. It's another thing entirely to create a piece of art which is truly meaningful and valuable. This film-maker, it seems, has nothing new or original to say. Somebody should tell him the road to hell is paved with good intentions (assuming he had any).

I didn't find this movie terribly entertaining, and it certainly wasn't comfortable to watch much of the time. It involved a lot of confrontation. Of course, the confrontation was motivated by love, but it was confrontation nonetheless, and at times you could see fear/trust dynamics in operation at the beginning of an interaction.The biggest takeaway for me was the courage of the protagonists to answer the call to bring Jesus to a world in deep need of Him, and to do so even when it meant not only inconvenience, but also danger. Thus the theme of risk-taking. Nothing gets accomplished unless we make the decision to take calculated risk. Each of us has a choice to make - our own comfort, or to make a difference in people's lives.I would recommend viewing this movie not as a piece of entertainment, but with a heart open to what changes might need to be made to bring your life into all it can be.