Movie review: “The Last Brickmaker in America”
I put “The Last Brickmaker in America” in my Netflix queue solely because it starred Sidney Poitier. If you haven’t seen “To Sir, with Love”, “In the Heat of the Night”, and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” you really should do so. Those were filmed when Mr. Poitier was at his peak and are amazing films. Especially the last one which is set in the 1960’s and involves an interracial romance that has both sets of parents initially dead set against the pending marriage.
In “The Last Brickmaker in America” the only redeeming feature is Mr. Poitier’s performance. Let me start by pointing out that the DVD begins with trailers for four other “family friendly” (a phrase mentioned several times) films. One of the trailers included the breathlessly intoned “This is the film Christians have been waiting for.” The distributor of this film and at least two of the trailers is Phase 4 Films. Their logo makes you immediately think of a Christian cross. Given the company is based in North America and focuses on family-oriented films that is probably intentional:
This is apparently a made for TV movie similar to those produced by the Hallmark Channel that anyone watching TV in the 1970’s and 1980’s will remember. Unfortunately this is movie is far worse than anything I remember from the Hallmark Channel.
Every single character is cherubic with not a hair out of place and clothing so clean and starched, even when digging a ditch, you marvel at their ability to go through life as if every moment was wearing their Sunday best as they enter church. The child protagonist is given dialog that is completely unbelievable for a 13 year old.
There were a couple of memorable scenes before I gave up around the halfway point and ejected the DVD. The first was a set piece between the estranged husband and wife. The husband is expressing his frustration that the wife not only went to college after they were married but went on to have a career that didn’t involve spending all day cooking and cleaning their home. The second was a storm of biblical proportions that destroyed several hundred bricks the Poitier character and the child protagonist had made earlier that day. Note that this wasn’t just an unexpected rain storm. It was a hurricane level event. Something you might think the national weather service might have predicted and a brick maker might have prepared for.
I remember when “God’s Not Dead” was released last year. I did not waste my money to see it in the theater. Not even a $5.50 matinee showing. Yet based on the reviews of “God’s Not Dead” I can only conclude it is a better movie than “The Last Brickmaker In America”.