UNSUNG HERO - Mark Reviews Movies

Unsung Hero, Lionsgate

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 25, 2024

It probably shouldn't come as a surprise to learn to whom the title of Unsung Hero is referring. It does, though, because co-writers/co-directors Richard L. Ramsey and Joel Smallbone don't seem to know what their movie is about, let alone know who the main character is supposed to be. It's mainly supposed to make us feel good about a lot things—a close-knit family working and praying together, a bunch of people coming together to help them, the family's determination to make some kind of dream come true in spite of their various struggles. That the project turns out to amount to an act of marketing for a couple of musical acts makes the whole thing tough to buy.

For reference, Smallbone is one half of a Christian pop act along with his younger brother Luke (who gets dual producing credits on the movie), and this movie recounts the story of their family moving from Australia to Nashville, Tennessee, in the early 1990s (That most of it takes place in a generically idyllic suburb makes one wonder if the production itself bothered to move, especially when one of the characters points out that a house looks a lot like the one they had back home). They showed up with hopes of a well-paying job for the Smallbone patriarch, a music promoter who lost everything—including the family's money and his reputation—after a local recession resulted in a disastrous concert.

When that gig falls through, the family really has nothing, and on top of it, they find themselves in a foreign land with that nothing. They could return home, but here, at least, people in the music business might not know about the promoter's past (which really isn't that bad, all things considered, but apparently the Christian music industry isn't as forgiving as one might expect).

The father is David, and he's played by the filmmaking Smallbone, the real man's son, in a casting decision that probably shouldn't be given too much thought. Playing David's wife—and the actor's mother, which, again, is a fact that one shouldn't linger on for too long—Helen is Daisy Betts, who had been raising six children practically on her own at home in Australia, while David was busy with work. Her role here is to play both the broadly supportive wife and lovingly supportive mother. Considering that the movie's attempt at an emotional climax states that she's the hero of this story, her character certainly does exist in the background of the story's multiple other concerns. "Unsung" is right in ways the filmmakers apparently didn't quite consider.

Most of the story revolves around David's efforts to break into the Christian music scene in Nashville, while the rest of the family works hard, starting a yard-keeping business, and supports each other harder to stay financially afloat as the father falls deeper into despair and keeps having his pride injured. Half of the kids that arrive in the United States are unimportant to the story, although they exist and occasionally offer some comic relief.

The main ones are Rebecca (Kirrilee Berger), the only daughter until Helen gives birth to the couple's seventh child, and, unsurprisingly, the two brothers whose music duo's name gets both a production logo and an "a film by" credit at the top. The younger Joel (Diesel La Torraca) and Luke (JJ Pantano) have their own dreams of musical success, but they're willing to wait in the wings until Rebecca, whose angelic singing voice somehow isn't noticed by her music-professional father until a fellow parishioner at the local church points it out to him, gets her shot.

The screenplay is so busy juggling all these stories that, in addition to relegating its eponymous character to an archetype, it never seems to find a focal point for its storytelling. The family's financial struggles certainly feel like obvious choice for that focus for a bit (as inauthentic as the setup seems), but there's little to it when Jed (Lucas Black), a songwriter, and other parishioners at the local church repeatedly arrive to save the day (It's strange that David never once asks the guy for help with or advice in actually getting into the local music scene). It's all meant to inspire, of course, but that's tough when both the ups and the downs of a story come across as contrived as they are here.

Eventually, the story does find somewhat of a focus, as David tries to help Rebecca get into the business. From that point on, the rest of the family and, indeed, the whole of the family's financial problems are pushed aside for what amounts to a straightforward story of a young talent's rise to fame. Unsung Hero means well as a tribute to family unity and following dreams, but until the plot becomes the stuff of formula, its uncertainty in how to tell that story is apparent.

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