Last September, liberal film critics brought their cinematic sensibilities to bear on Fireproof, the latest low-budget, unapologetically evangelical movie released by Sherwood Pictures, the ambitious media arm of a vibrant Baptist ministry in Georgia. Out came the machetes: “The smarmiest aspects of Southern American Protestantism surface in this embarrassingly sincere sermon on the sanctity of matrimony” (Time Out). “A ghastly piece of evangelical agit-prop . . . sitting in a packed theater with 200 Christards who laughed, cried, and clapped like drunken marionettes to every string pulled by this idiotic movie filled me with a nostalgic terror” (Pajiba.com). By the end of the pile-on, the pic had earned a pathetic 39 percent approval rating among professional critics at the popular review website Rotten Tomatoes, and a quick demise at the box office seemed assured. Working under the assumption, which has yet to fail me, that any film generating such amusing anti-Christian petulance must be worth seeing, I trudged out to a theater soon after its release. What I experienced was a bit clunky and amateurish by slick Hollywood standards, to be sure–but by the time its fiercely heartfelt conclusion played out, Fireproof had bloomed into the most genuinely moving film I’d seen all year. And I wasn’t alone in feeling this way: Buoyed by excellent word-of-mouth (unlike the pro guys, average filmgoers at Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie an 88 percent positive rating), Fireproof racked up $33 million at the domestic box office, a full 60 times its production costs. This follows in the even more modest footsteps of Sherwood’s previous effort, Facing the Giants (2006), which took in a cool $10 million in theaters–100 times what it cost to make. On DVD Giants did even better, adding $20 million more to its burgeoning coffers. Lord knows how much Fireproof is going to make post-theatrically, but we’ll soon find out–the DVD version hits stores today, both in a standard edition and in a three-pack (the smart buy) that includes Sherwood’s other movies. There’s also a book that appears in the film, titled The Love Dare, that itself has sold in excess of a million copies since its real-world release last fall. Stories of Fireproof-ed marriages and life-changing epiphanies are legion, fueled by add-ons such as the Fireproof Your Marriage Couples Kit, the Fireproof Your Marriage: Leader’s Guide, the Fireproof Your Life paperback, the Love Dare & Couple’s Study Bundle, and on and on. We may be witnessing the beginnings of a genuine phenomenon, the matrimonial equivalent of cultural tsunamis like the Atkins Diet. The word on the Hollywood street is that drug-addled studio executives all over Tinseltown are mighty confused about Sherwood’s success. Poor guys–I picture them hurriedly buckling up their trousers, discreetly shooing disheveled, half-dressed physical therapists out of side doors, and vainly attempting to focus-group into existence a brew of pandering sanctimony potent enough to muscle in on some of those heavenly profits. What do you think, will it be Mike Myers in The Love Dare Guru? The Wayans brothers in Fire-spoof? Lindsay Lohan and her girlfriend winsomely embracing on the cover of The Love-That-Dare-Not-Speak-Its-Name Dare? If only it were that easy. Fireproof, an anguished tale of a marriage shattered seemingly beyond repair, succeeds because it makes up for its perilous lack of Hollywood resources with a superabundance of guts and honesty and primal drama. The movie doesn’t feature blow-dried pretty boys with tombstone-sized veneers whispering “You complete me” to doe-eyed, D-cup anorexics. Far from being the cinematic equivalent of an insipidly devout greeting card, director Alex Kendrick’s film brutally kicks its weary protagonists through the doors of divorce. Deep wells of skepticism and disbelief haunt the couple, and faith is achieved not with airy, Thomas Kinkade–hued aplomb but through raw pain and sacrifice. Time and again, whenever a Pavlovian moviegoer instinct warns that a cheap Hollywood cliché is nigh, the film unexpectedly smacks it down with a rare ruthlessness. “Let me be real clear about something,” the wife sneers at a crucial moment when the husband makes a courageous attempt at reconciliation, “I do not love you.” The words strike home like a knife through the heart, and even the solidly blue-state audience I was with gasped as if from a physical blow. I walked away from this uncompromising film shaken, as if I’d witnessed a terrible accident only narrowly averted by a force so ethereal that the only word delicate enough to describe it is grace. The skill with which Fireproof depicts God–a whisper through questing minds, a thunderbolt through opened hearts–renders moot all the easy criticisms of stiff direction and leaden editing. Indeed, it’s quite touching to watch these ordinary people, most of whom have never acted in their lives, trying their level best to do justice to soul-stirring roles of a sort abdicated by Hollywood long ago. At the end of Fireproof, a final plot twist as startling as anything in The Sixth Sense sends the hero into the arms of an actress whose complete lack of experience is betrayed by her every line reading and expression. Yet unless you’re irredeemably cynical, I daresay your eyes will be too filled with hot tears to care. Achieving that level of emotional investment against all odds constitutes real cinematic power, tiger-stuff, and despite occasionally wobbling like a baby taking his first steps, Fireproof has it in spades. Will the inspiring example of this lone church in Georgia spur on other conservatives to finally pick up a camera and seed fresh tales of faith, patriotism, sacrifice, and family into the popular culture, as of old? I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. Finally, some climate change worth believing in. – Leo Grin is a writer living in Los Angeles. NRO readers can listen to Betsy Hart’s June 2008 podcast with Fireproof star Kirk Cameron here.