Movie Review: Billy: The Early Years

ROUNDUP REVIEW: BILLY: THE EARLY YEARS

(2 stars)

The chasm between belief and doubt is not as wide as those of blind faith and skeptics would like to think. Doubt can, in fact, stir one's soul.

That is the crux of "Billy: The Early Years," a biography for the silver screen about one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Christianity: Rev. Billy Graham, the charismatic evangelist and spiritual adviser to nine American presidents.

"Billy: The Early Years" portrays Graham as a skeptical teenager coming of age on his father's dairy farm. He proclaims the two things he will never be are an undertaker or a preacher, adding that he'd much rather play baseball - until he suddenly answers an altar call at an outdoor tent revival and commits his life to following Christ.

The movie follows Graham through his brief and rocky stint at what is now Bob Jones University, his preparation as a preacher at Florida Bible Institute, his liberal arts education at Wheaton College and the Los Angeles revival that would launch his storied career.

Like any decent Hollywood flick, it spends considerable time on Graham's courtship of his wife, Ruth Bell Graham (Stefanie Butler), who enchanted him with her beauty, compassion and pitching arm.

The movie paints a glowing - if not slightly one-dimensional - portrait of Graham from the point of view of Charles Templeton, a fellow preacher who eventually disagreed with the literal interpretation of the Bible espoused by Graham and followed a more academic path. He eventually wrote the book "Farewell to God."

Martin Landau portrays Templeton as a tortured man on his deathbed, full of remorse and haunted by horrors of the life he has lived and that his loss of faith has left him unable to cope.

In contrast, Armie Hammer, the great-grandson of American tycoon Armand Hammer, portrays Graham as a golden boy full of youthful exuberance and passion for preaching the Gospel, who prays for his friend Templeton when they part ways.

It is Templeton's doubts that stir Graham's crisis of faith in 1949 before his first crusade in Los Angeles. And it is that compelling story line that is the movie's saving grace.

To watch Graham grapple with the questions the Bible cannot answer and come out the other side even more devoted gives the audience a glimpse of his humanity. After all, aren't these the questions many of us confront whether we have faith or not?

- Manya A. Brachear

Running time: 1:35. Opens Friday. MPAA rating: PG (for thematic material including some disturbing images, brief language and smoking).