Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] I'm back.
[00:00:02] I told you I'd be back with this one for you today, but I left you hanging as to what movie that we're going to be talking about. Now, I mentioned that if you'd ever known anything about the separation of church and state, that this is a review that you're going to want to check out. And I'll explain that a little bit more here in just a minute. But if this is your first time here, this is movie deputy reviews, and I want to welcome you because this is a little bit of an adventure as we go along here. So I'm hoping that you'll bear with me through this because this is going to be kind of a challenging review to do, not because of what you think, but because of everything you thought you know is about to get turned on its head.
[00:00:53] Now, I am giving this movie an innocent rating. It. There's a few things in here that kind of deal with some controversial topics, but nothing like over the top, to the point where it would have to have a guilty rating. Though I will say younger audiences are not going to relate with this movie as much. But this is one. If you want to check it out and you've got younger kids in the room, there is nothing necessarily to shield them from. Now, if you've ever known anything about the separation of church and state, maybe you don't know the details, but a lot of it comes down to a 1971 Supreme Court ruling of lemon versus kurtzman. And that is why it is that particular Supreme Court ruling of why we were no longer allowed to have things like the Ten Commandments in courthouses or able to pray in schools. Now, I'm not talking about, like, public things in prayer, but I mean, even like, privately praying, there's. The complete separation of church and state have took it, like, one step too far. Now, mind you, the original intention of the separation of church and state was to keep the government from infringing on people's rights to believe. And unfortunately, in that 1971 Supreme Court ruling, they took it a step too far to where you could not have your beliefs in a public area and in a public setting. You were. You had to keep your beliefs private. You had to be almost secretive about your beliefs if you were out in a public place or if you were out in, like a public, like a courthouse or a police station or anything that the. Why that was so. Such an overstepping ruling in that 1971 thing. And we're gonna be talking a little bit about that today because maybe wondering, okay, what does that have to do with the movie. Well, basically everything. Now, the movie that we're talking about today is called average Joe.
[00:02:54] I will say, and I beg you, please stick around for the review. I'm gonna go ahead and tell you the score that I gave this, but I'm begging you to please stick around for the review because I think it's important. And I'm gonna explain some of the why I gave this, the score that I gave this. This average Joe movie. I'm only giving this a 5.25. So a five and a quarter out of ten on the deputy scale. But I want to remind people that it's not your standard rating scale. If you want to check it out, go to moviedevity.com. and that's on the about me page.
[00:03:26] But even on the movie deputy scale, which is a scale that I created, even a four out of ten is what's called watchable but forgettable. A five is. It's a decent story, but there are some flaws involved. And there. This is a very important story. So I don't want to downplay the importance of this story in this review, but it does come across as being quite preachy initially, even, like, on up to about a half hour before I recorded this. I was honestly mid fours on this movie, just being completely transparent. I was mid four s for, like I said, is watchable but forgettable. But I really. I could not.
[00:04:08] Sometimes I even have to go back and look at my rating scale, which I've gotten nearly memorized. But at the same time, I'm like, there's nothing about this movie that's forgettable, except, unless people just is like, I don't want to remember this, but because there is something in about this movie that changes history. Like, literally, I'm not even being facetious on that in the least.
[00:04:30] This movie is based on a true story about Joseph Kennedy, Coach Joseph Kennedy, and something that he did that went all the way to the supreme court that changed how things are done. And so this is this movie. The movie itself didn't change history, but the movie is about a person that did. And you may be thinking, okay, what's so special about Joseph Kennedy? I've never even heard about him. Well, guess what? Neither had I. I hadn't either.
[00:04:56] He is a kid that grew up in foster care. He was just a rough and tumble kid that just passed around from home to home. He fought. He got in trouble. He was in trouble with the law. He was like, juvie. Just. He was what a lot of people would call a bad kid. Now, I try to think of the whole adage that there's no such thing as bad kids, just bad decisions. That's always better when my kitties are being jerks. It's like, good kitty, just make bad decision.
[00:05:29] And Patero is looking up at me right now. But in this one, he really was that rough and tumble kid. And one of his foster homes, he sees this girl and is just instantly head over heels.
[00:05:43] Love at first sight. Just, he's convinced this is the girl he's gonna marry someday. But of course, she wants nothing to do with him because he's this rough and tumble kid. And this. But don't get me wrong, this is not your typical love story. Don't worry. This is not your typical love story. But the thing is, he's dealt with so much trouble and stuff over the years, he basically has a choice of either going into the military things or, like, going down a whole other path in life. Now, it's not like the judge gave him that decision.
[00:06:13] It was like, okay, if he wanted to have a chance of straightening out his life, this is going to basically be his only chance at doing so well. So that's what he did. He joined, he went into the military, and he served honorably. Oh, God bless you.
[00:06:26] Sorry, one of my kiddies sneezing.
[00:06:29] But when he got back from that, he thinks he's going to go back to this girl he's head over heels in love with and start a new life. And things don't necessarily work out as we have planned. So he goes into something that he knows. He goes into coaching and kind of goes around about a bunch of different things, and he does some other jobs and stuff along the way, but this opportunity, the girl is still there and he's still trying to interact with things. And he gets married and divorced, and there's just things that don't go the way he plans. And obviously, pretty much most of the movie doesn't go how he had planned to, but he really starts to learn about faith because of this girl. Now, if it was not for this girl, her name is Denise. And, okay, this is not technically a spoiler. If you know anything about the thing, if you've watched any of the trailers, it's definitely not a spoiler. But he does end up with the girl, so don't worry. That's not a though that sounds like a spoiler. It's really not.
[00:07:28] But she really helps him find his faith. Well, along this journey that they have done together, he becomes the coach of North Lake Central High school football.
[00:07:39] Well, he has made a promise to God that if. I mean, he kind of helps his tim turn his life around. And if he does this and if he's able to succeed at this, he will honor him after every game. Now, mind you, he's not asking the students go out to go out on the field and pray with him. He is not asking anybody to go out on the field of pray with him. But he's going out to the 50 yard line, and he's dropping down on one knee, and he is praying. So he's. He's nothing. He's not taking a knee to protest anything. There was some people that were after that I talked to after this movie that thought that's what he was doing. No, that was not at all what he was doing. He was doing it in a way to pray.
[00:08:19] But being that it was a public school, public funded, he dealt with a lot of pushback and basically was threatened that if he keeps doing this, he's no longer gonna have a job. Well, he kept doing it, and lo and beholden, they fired him. Don't worry. No spoilers.
[00:08:38] So, this one agency called First Liberty, and they are a nonprofit legal organization that help people fight cases that are the whole church versus state type thing.
[00:08:51] And it ends up just going through a bunch of red tape at a bunch of different levels. But finally, they get a chance to go in front of the supreme court. And if you know anything how the Supreme Court works, they get to choose what cases they hear, and they see this case, and they. They don't want it. But in an unprecedented move. And like I said, no spoilers. I'm not giving any spoilers here, but they basically tell them it's like, okay, we're not going to take it like this, but if you do this, then we'll hear it.
[00:09:24] And so, first, Liberty and coach Kennedy think they have a chance. Well, this fight that Kennedy is dealing with, it's not as simple as it seems, and he is putting everything in his life at risk. And I'll let you just figure out what that means based on watching the movie.
[00:09:45] But he's literally putting his entire life at risk in every way imaginable to fight this fight. And so they go, and they end up presenting their case in front of the Supreme Court. And, of course, that's when Covid and everything is going on. So only basically, the lead, the law, the legal representation is only. Are the only ones allowed to go in. So he's not even able to go into court and represent himself or not, he's not representing himself, but I mean, basically, to say it in his own words, he's not allowed to do so. He is in complete, completely reliant on his attorneys.
[00:10:21] Well, as you've noticed, I can't talk. I'm twisting over my own tongue here. But like I said, he changed history because the ruling the Supreme Court made is that as long as he was not forcing people to participate or even like, to say people like, yeah, come on, participate with me.
[00:10:44] The Supreme Court held up the thing of religious freedom. They completely undid the 1971 ruling of Lemon versus Kurtzman. If you want to know more, feel free to google it. There is. There's a ton of information out there. But what the Supreme Court ruled here is that religious freedom is allowed. If a county wants to put up the Ten Commandments in their courthouse, they're not asking anybody to stop and acknowledge it. But see, that's. See, that's one of the areas where this is going to get really just. I was talking to some people after this movie, and they're like, okay, great, we can pray in schools. We can do all this. Like, yes, you can.
[00:11:27] That's what this ruling means is you can do. You can go ahead and do all this stuff. You know, if that upsets you, fine. That's. Guess what? You're. You're free to be offended. Nobody's stopping that either. But that's not the end of this, because I was pointing out that, okay, yeah, that is. This is a great supreme court ruling. And this basically puts it back, like, what the founding fathers believed in, that you should have the freedom to believe what you want to believe, even if that's in a public place.
[00:11:57] But there's a big part of this that a lot of the Christians that were at when I went to the theater to see this, that they weren't thinking about. And I, we sat around for probably 40 minutes just discussing this stuff. We had to go out of the theater because the next movie was starting. But I. We're in the hallway, and then they've got, like, a seating area up in the lobby. So we were just sitting there chit chatting.
[00:12:19] And what, like I said, they're like, yes, we can put the ten commands. We can pray. We can do all this. I'm like, yes, but so can every other religion. I mean, if somebody wants to put up a statue of their deity, if you're allowed to put up a statue of a cross or a statue of Jesus or the thing of the Ten Commandments, then somebody else could put up Buddha or anything else, too. It's like that is this, I'm not saying that this is a bad ruling at all, but a lot of people are misinterpreting it, that this is giving christians free reign. And I think that is a very important thing to acknowledge is what this is. It's preserving and defending religious freedom. But it's not just saying christians have religious freedom. It's saying whatever you believe in, whatever religious that you believe in, you are free to believe in it. If you want to stop in the middle of somewhere and pray, that is your right to do so. And they cannot stop you from doing that. Or literally, they are going against, literally, a Supreme court ruling. Now, that's going to make some people uncomfortable because I for one, and I not necessarily proud of this, but after 911, if I saw somebody pulling out a prayer rug and praying right before they boarded a plane, I got nervous. I'm not proud of that. I don't necessarily feel that way anymore. But right after 911, I did, like I said, I'm not proud of that. But they have that right. That's, that's what religious freedom is. And I'm not defending any of the religions that are out there calling for any sort of harm to anybody else. No, this Supreme Court ruling does not protect that. This Supreme Court ruling does not protect your right to harm somebody else because of what your belief system is. That is not what this means.
[00:14:18] And you may be thinking, okay, this is just some other religious zealot. I'm not. I'm more agnostic than I care to admit to most people.
[00:14:27] But there's just, like I said when I went to this movie, there's a lot of christians. It's like, okay, now we can do all this stuff again. It's like, yeah, but so can everybody else. They're like, oh, no, they can't. It's like, what part of religious freedom do you not understand?
[00:14:41] And so that's one of the reasons that this movie is just, it's very preachy, but it's very Christianity forward. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If you are a Christian and you are proud of your faith and you want to pray at a restaurant before a meal or you want to pray at a court hearing before a ruling is made, go ahead and do so. I'm not disparaging that in the least, but this ruling protects all religious freedoms. And I just, there's a lot of people that did not understand that just based on the way that this movie was done. Hence, some of the errors that I had to knock the score for. Now, I know I am running long on this review, so I want to apologize, but I just felt that it was important to touch on some of these factors. So if you ever get into a debate about the whole religious freedom, religious liberty, all of this stuff, point people to the Joseph Kennedy Supreme Court ruling. Point them to the 1971 ruling of Lemon v. Kurtzman that has since been overturned. Point them to things like this movie that can help open the dialogue of discussion between people for something such as this. Because I think this is important, and I think it's important to discuss these things and to understand these things and just to acknowledge and live your life to the best of your ability and be free in doing so. Like I said, that is what our founding fathers had intended, and it was just nice to see the updated Supreme Court ruling on something like that.
[00:16:18] If you have enjoyed this review or if this has created some chaos in your life or has at least created a thing, something for discussion, you know which buttons to push so you can always get the latest and greatest movie deputy content. As you know, not all of my reviews are this deep and this detailed, but some of them are in ways that I hope that help people. I'm probably going to piss some people off too, but so be it. I'm good at pissing Hollywood off to begin with, so no surprise there. But again, you know which buttons to push. If you want the earliest notifications of the latest and greatest movie deputy content, be sure to hit the subscribe over there on our movie deputies YouTube channel to always get the latest and greatest. And of course, if you want to just subscribe over here on one of our podcast channels, you'll get those a couple hours after they go on live on YouTube. So I hope that you have a wonderful day. I hope you take something away from this. And if nothing else, I always hope you stick around and listen for more. And as always, I'll be back as soon as I can. Bye.
