It has no nudity.
No profanity.
No sex, no gore, no torture.
There’s no glamorized violence.
Yet “The Reliant,” a faith-based movie about life, values and the threat of anarchy in the world, has been given an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.
Now J.P. Johnston, a writer and producer for the film that stars Kevin Sorbo (Hercules), Brian Bosworth (The Longest Yard), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), the Benham brothers (War Room) and Mollee Gray (High School Musical), is offering an explanation for why the powers of Hollywood are resorting to censorship.
“If you can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas, censorship is how you win. The powerful media monopolies conspire to muzzle the ideals of faith and liberty in the public square because only in a vacuum of truth and light can their insanity survive,” Johnston said in a commentary.
“A faith-based action film that is also pro-Second Amendment? That’s just more than the Hollywood elites can handle,” he continued.
The story line is about economic collapse. Widespread rioting and looting follows, forcing a 21-year-old girl, on the eve of her wedding, to care for her siblings in a woodlands on the edge of the violence.
And she wonders why a good God would let such a thing happen.
See an interview with one of the main characters:
Johnston points out that Tim Schmidt, president of the U.S. Concealed Carry Association and executive producer of “The Reliant,” says the film is family friendly.
“It seems the MPAA gave ‘The Reliant’ an R-rating due to their discomfort with how the movie depicts the responsible use of a firearm by a pre-teen boy. This boy saved the innocent lives of his own family members! It just doesn’t make sense to me,” he said.
Johnton explains: “Yes, Kevin Sorbo’s character and his children use weapons to defend themselves from armed looters, but it is so much less violence than even many PG-13 action films. This is an entertaining but God-honoring film. We were so careful to prevent the ‘The Reliant’ from coming anywhere near an ‘R’ rating.”
He says movie producers now are raising funds to launch a fight over the rating.
At the Western Journal, Johnston went further, describing the MPAA as among “increasingly brazen leftist media powerhouses who discriminate against conservative voices in the public square.”
He points out that quoting a Bible verse on homosexuality violates Facebook’s “community standards.” And at Twitter, “alternative news sources frequently find themselves muzzled while profane rants against them are celebration.”
Then there’s Google.
“Discriminatory algorithms ensure that articles praising the Second Amendment, President Trump, traditional marriage, and lashing out against illegal immigration are suppressed while the ‘fake news media’ gets free rein,” he said.
“What prompted the ‘R’ rating? The MPAA’s explanation is vague and inconsistent, but most likely, a scene wherein a 12-year-old skillfully uses a handgun to defend his sister from the villain,” Johnston explained.
The trailer is posted on the fundraising Indiegogo site.
A homeschooling mother, Kendra Thomas, told Johnston: “My children and I viewed ‘The Reliant’ together and found it perfectly appropriate for family viewing. It deals with social issues in a meaningful way that is generally acceptable to children and adults alike. Unlike other movies, there is no nudity, sex, horror, profanity, innuendo, intoxication, blasphemy or racism in ‘The Reliant.’ There is more to dislike in the animated children’s movie ‘Captain Underpants’ than in ‘The Reliant.'”
At the movie’s website, the promoters vowed to fight the “unjust rating” from MPAA.
“We intend to protest the rating, but there are legal fees and expenses.”