Ring the Bell

Sometimes I just flip through my Netflix queue looking for stuff that is a particular length. Don't really care what it's about, just needs to be the right length. This one fit that criteria. The better question is how it made my queue in the first place. Ring the Bell tells the story of Rob Decker, an obnoxious, ethics-challenged, high-profile sports agent headed off to a small town to try and convince Sean Hart, the nation's top baseball prospect, to go pro instead of going to college. When Rob's BMW (that somehow has the GM-only OnStar in it) breaks down, Rob is stuck in town for a few days. He meets a cast of characters in town that will show him the error of his ways and he comes around. This is the standard city-slicker-stranded-in-a-small-town we've seen so many times before, like in the far-better Doc Hollywood, among others. The twist here is that Ring the Bell is a Christian movie, a fact it will beat you over the head with throughout. I knew that going in and didn't care. I watch and enjoy Christian movies all the time. Some are good and pretty well-done - Moms Night Out, for example. Others, like this one, not so much. You get the standard decent-but-not-Hollywood production values but also get a bad script, lame characters, and not-great acting. Every conversation turns into a ham-handed sermon. The result is a movie that, even if you judge on a "it's a Christian movie so I'll lower my standards" scale, is terrible. But, hey, look for cameos from major leaguers Rick Sutcliffe, John Kruk, and Ben Zobrist and a nice (but too long) concert clip from Christian stars Casting Crowns. 2/10.