Written by: Ashtyn at 1:46 am
Filed under: HBO,Movies,Primetime,Television
I had mixed feelings when I took on this review. The press release I read told me Justin Fatica wasn’t for everyone. An un-ordained Catholic minister with a passion for Jesus doesn’t seem like the right review topic for someone like me. A Psychology Student with a passion for Ancient Religions and Polytheism (not unlike myself) and someone like Justin Fatica probably wouldn’t hit it off for one reason or another. Regardless, I find my interest in religion is powerful. It’s important for me to know what’s out there and what it could mean for the world around me. So, I signed up for a review expecting to be wowed…and wowed I was.
When I turned on Hard as Nails, I wasn’t sure what I would get. Fatica has named his ministry, Hard as Nails Ministry. I wasn’t sure that it made him or his group that way. After all, at times people advertise things for shock value. While Fatica is shocking, I suppose he wasn’t faking for show. His ministry really is Hard as Nails. Unless you are as gung ho about God, Fatica might be off-putting and perhaps even a little scary.
In the first ten minutes, you are introduced to Fatica on stage in front of the teenagers that he speaks to regularly. I watched in disbelief as he asked those children, many of whom were already crying, if they would take a bullet for God. He reminds them that taking a bullet would be easy. After all, if you believe in such things, Jesus did die for you.
He holds the hands of a young man and tells him that Jesus loves him. Fatica is then struck with a steel chair, full on his back. “He loves you”, he says again, and again he is struck with the chair. I had to turn the DVD off at that point. I wasn’t sure what bothered me the most, but something struck a chord in me and it made the documentary quite hard to watch. I did, for this review, turn it back on though.
Through the course of the documentary you learn more about Justin. He wasn’t always passionate about Jesus. He made mistakes and he got a girl pregnant. He doesn’t know if that baby is alive or dead, over ten years later, because the child’s mother never let him find out. After this event he got involved with the church. As he tells people, he felt he had nowhere else to turn.
As appalled as I am at his tactics, which include calling people “fat” on stage in order to prove to people that you shouldn’t do it, performing mock-crucifixions, and blindfolding kids while they walk with a cross on their back and are tormented and degraded as Jesus might have been, I feel that Justin is not a bad guy. While I do not agree with his “form” of religion or his need to help the kids he does in the way he does, I believe he is trying to help them. I realize that this is more than most are doing for these kids.
Throughout the documentary, you hear the stories from some of the children at the shows that Fatica performs. Some of the kids were cutters because they couldn’t handle high school, some had eating disorders because they feared becoming fat and many were raped and molested. I felt the worst for them because these kids were led to believe it was their fault. All of them share a common thread with Fatica. These kids do not have anywhere else to go.
Many of the kids need help. Unfortunately, in the case of those that have been molested, they need more help than Fatica and Jesus can offer them. While it is comforting to know they have somewhere to go, and it is comforting to know that he wants to help, I was never convinced that Jesus is the answer. Instead, for most of these kids, it appears that Jesus is the diversion.
Fatica’s form of religion is extreme. These kids, with all their problems, are drawn to it for the same reason they might have been drawn to drugs or unsafe sex (in the case of those that went that route) and that is that this form of religion is extreme, just like drugs are extreme.
It leads me to believe that many of these kids, who clearly need help, are drawn in because of a lack of options. It is sad to think that because it will lead to a lot of misled adults. All that aside, I have never doubted that Fatica is one of the good guys.
Hard as Nails is a hard pill to swallow. Many of those that you hear speak are on stage because they did not like who they were. One of the girls in Justin’s group stands during a performance to tell the audience how she lost her virginity at 14. The boy broke up with her the next day. That was when she decided that would never happen to her again. The main problem I have with Fatica is that he appears before you telling you that Jesus is the answer for everything. Unfortunately, this is not true. This answer is a solution for some, but a cop-out and a path of fear for many others. A man who is starving will follow a path of breadcrumbs if he thinks he will eventually hit some form of food at the end of the path.
These kids follow Fatica wanting to find an end to their suffering. He gives them Jesus. Eventually, for many of those kids, the screaming antics of the passionate preacher will not be enough. Hopefully they don’t revert to any dangerous habits they had before him. Hopefully they take his message, which in its elementary form, is that it’s necessary to be a good person in life. Hopefully, the ones that truly need help get the help they need.
Justin Fatica isn’t for everyone. While his passion is admirable and his vision is necessary, his implementation is not for me. Hard as Nails is an excellent documentary. Whether you are Christian or Catholic it is a worthwhile documentary and I highly recommend watching it. It’s shocking to see what these kids go through both in and out of the church. It will open your eyes in some areas and, if you’re like me, make you want to close them in others.
Technorati Tags: Justin Fatica, Hard as Nails, Ministry, Catholic, Un-Ordained, HBO, Documentary, Film Review, DVD
---------------------
Written by Ashtyn - Visit Website
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ashtyn Evans is a writer, advocate, free thinker, and all around cynical person. Always quick to find the negative in anything pop culture, she loves being a part of that which she despises. Ashtyn and Dominick own numerous blogs together, as well as a full-time writing business. In her spare time she is a full-time college student studying History and Psychology. She plans to one day give up her freelance career and be a full-time blogger, novelist, and domestic goddess. She can be contacted for writing projects, fan mail, or just to say hi. She really is friendlier than we make her look.
