joeyandemilysmith I give this movie 5 out of 10 because I could not seem to pull my attention away from the movie; apparently I found it *that* riveting, but when I watch a Christian movie, I am on the lookout for any inconsistencies with the Bible and that may explain some of my locked gaze. I did find two things that bothered me about the movie and therefore, I do believe they are biblically inconsistent. First I'll cover the good parts:Not a big weeper myself, I found myself moved to tears several times in the lives portrayed by the characters. The movie accurately portrays the difficult life to which a walk with Christ calls the Christian. On earth, Jesus' saving grace does not prevent the Christian from pain or difficult, challenging sufferings--in fact, it calls the Christian deeper into such things, while being able to cling to Christ ever tighter because of the true hope He gave/gives us. This movie reflects this well.What I find troublesome about the movie is the background of the business man who ends up rejecting Christ and going to hell. Our hell-bound businessman had parents and a grandmother who were loving and precious in the sight of Christ and who also prayed fervently for the businessman's salvation for a long time. In the movie, Jesus covers this more than once in different ways and is revealed in flashbacks. However, this man still ends up angry with Jesus and choosing not-Him, which is hell. That "encounter" communicates that prayer is ineffective and unproductive!Also, that particular storyline is inconsistent with itself in that if this man was raised by such loving parents and grandparent, that he would not grow up to be such an angry and unthoughtful person, unless the grand/parents themselves had gross oversight themselves in attending to the emotional needs of their hell-bound son. I recognize that there is room for this in the Bible; look at how David's own son wanted to kill him! However, the Bible clearly states how David broke His law and the resulting consequences are tragic; David fathered his first six children from six different foreign (non-believing) women, and he wasn't there for the kids. In contrast, our businessman was not without a loving and caring upbringing. The only thing the story relates is that he was mortally embarrassed by his youthful foreign accent and poor upbringing. Godly parents would have coached him through that. I also found a theological inconsistency with the movie, in which Jesus stated that He leaves the choice to commit our lives to Him up to us. I once took pride in that notion myself, but after further study of the Word, I now understand that it is only Christ in me that made that choice and not my own wretched self at all. The Lord had set my life up in such a way that compelled me deeply and with all the molecules that comprise me to give my life to Jesus, not my own choice. Not everyone is going to be elected and Jesus only died and then rose again for the elect.Sure its a low-budget film, but if the story is good, that is all that matters. The best actor was the husband whose wife wanted to leave him. His portrayal made me cry. And the lady who played his wife was pretty good at being cruel to him. Whoever played Jesus did a pretty good job of looking at and speaking to the characters in love. Jesus did a good job in jerking my tears also in His interactions with the hell-bound businessman, even though it was to me, theologically inconsistent.

Webmaster-42-446568 First of all I find it unsettling that there are some who attack people's ratings of this movie because of a failure to meet a cinematic standard they want to see in a movie or others beliefs as Christians. We're suppose to rate the movie, not peoples ratings or their beliefs.This is a low budget film, of course it's not going to be on the same level as a major Hollywood blockbuster. But what it lacks in that is made up in the content of the film. The actors chosen for this film are perfect for their roles. What I enjoyed about The Encounter is the reality of Jesus who knows everybody and how he intervenes and reaches out even when they don't know he is there. The concept of meeting him at a diner I found to be brilliant, making him personable and real. It's put a fresh new perspective of him in my life and how simple it is to reach out back to him.This is a different Christian movie than most others and really refreshing. It really showed the reality of the choices we are faced with and the consequences, both good and bad of those choices, and the constant battle between good and evil.If you're a Christian, you'll love this movie, if you're not, it's definitely worth giving it a chance because believe it or not, this movie shows a real side of Jesus you won't find anywhere else. It succeeds in showing how real and approachable Jesus really is. There are much worse things you could waste your time watching.I would have given it a 10 except that there were times the camera shook, like the camera man either moved the tripod or the shot was hand held. Even for a low budget film, camera shake is really not acceptable.

SternMarcus First let me disclose I am not a Christian, nor even religious, but I find the subject extremely interesting. I considered myself fair and balanced and wouldn't rate a movie poorly simply because I didn't like or agree with the "message" or a particular actor, etc.The really high ratings seem to be focused on the "message" or topic rather than the movie itself. I watched the movie hoping for something along the lines of "The Man from Earth (2007)", not so much for controversial ideas but at least something thought provoking. The movie missed the mark on so many levels it's shameful.Other negative reviews have already touched on many of the cinematic issues, from acting, dialogue, music score and even continuity, so I won't rehash those. While those issues were hard to take at times, the core of the movie was simply poorly developed.The movie portrayed the believers, and non-believer (truthfully there was only one), as one dimensional, simplistic and not very intelligent. Intelligent people would have asked serious and rather profound questions, this lot didn't ask any. At best the questions were singular, simplistic and dropped after a simple response from Jesus.Overall the movie can be summed up as: Jesus loves you, no one can love you more than Jesus, if you blindly love Jesus you'll live eternally in peace and love in Heaven, and if you don't blindly follow Jesus you will burn in Hell. The message might be what some want to hear, but the journey the movie took to get there was empty and not worth the effort.

Christian Pompei the 3rd I rated this movie an honest 4. The only reason it has such a high score rate is because 90% of the Earth's population believe in God and more than 2 billion in Jesus. But if you're a atheist or agnostic you should skip this one because it's nothing more than a cinematographic summarization of the Bible, including the naive, child-appropriate story telling, fight between God and the devil and so one. Bad acting, bad directing, scripting, effects and everything related to cinematographic art is bad. The way the main character talks will remind you of a very passionate priest or pastor or Jehovah's Witnesses on a Sunday morning. The only thing I liked was the initial idea: a horror-like movie where you gather a bunch of people in a diner on a bad weather and things happen... but despite a classic film where people die in terrible pain and horror, this time only good and wonderful things take place. But besides that, there is no action, no story line, the characters are weak and flat, the ideas and philosophy are STRICTLY religious and the dialog disputes "don't stay in court". As an agnostic, I always like a good religious dispute but I was deeply disappointed this time. If you have one chance to face God what questions will you ask him? I have a bunch of them prepared and ready but non were heard in this film, nothing to upset the All Mighty, nothing to make the watcher think more than she/he should. If the biblical dialogs were more elevated and smart it would have made a good religious documentary. If you would take the whole religion idea out, it could have been a good movie.