Isaiah Wright is all wrong.
Not that he would say so. The 19-year-old would argue that his life is just fine, thanks. He’s through with high school and not interested in college. His mom, Cynthia, keeps him warm and fed and safe. He plays basketball. He plays video games. And he—well, that’s about it. And for Isaiah, that’s just fine.
But for Cynthia? It’s not fine. It’s not fine at all. And one afternoon, after dragging the week’s groceries in by herself (again) while Isaiah plays another shoot-em-up game (again), she’s had enough.
“You are 19 years old!” she says. “You are not going to sit around here living off of your mother, not when you’re fully capable of taking on some of this responsibility yourself!”
She tells Isaiah he has a month to find a job—and start paying her rent.
“You going to make me pay to live in my own house?” Isaiah whines.
“Your house?” Cynthia says.
Clearly (as far as Isaiah’s concerned) his mother’s gone beyond reason. But she does pay all the bills, so it’s not like Isaiah’s got a lot of leverage. So he slaps on his baseball cap and heads out into the cruel, cold world of Charlotte, North Carolina, to track down gainful employment.
Moore Fitness looks like it just might work. The building’s nice and big. The reception area is sleek and clean. He asks for an application, slouches into a couch and starts filling it out. At least Isaiah will be able to tell his mom he’s made some progress. Maybe that’ll get her off his back for a while.
And then, just as he’s slapping in his address and Social Security number, some old, well-dressed dude starts talking to him.
Isaiah does his best to brush the guy off. He doesn’t have time for that sort of conversational nonsense.
“I’m just trying to see about a job, all right?” Isaiah says, wearing his best don’t bother me scowl. “What, you a salesman for this company?”
“I’m the president,” the man says.
Well. Scratch Moore Fitness off the list of employment possibilities. Isaiah rips up his application, chucks it in the trash and storms toward the door.
But the president—Joshua Moore—isn’t about to let Isaiah off so easily. No, he means to give this disrespectful punk a … job.
And more than a job. Joshua wants to mentor Isaiah. Teach him not just how to be a good, solid worker for Moore Fitness, but how to be a man.
It’s not easy. Becoming a man—a real, responsible man—takes way more than reaching your 19th birthday. Or your 21st. Or your 37th. It takes effort. Character. Dedication.
Christ.
Isaiah never had a role model to show him the way. His father split long ago, and no one ever filled that gap. And yeah, his mother’s great and all, but there’s only so much she can do.
Joshua sizes up Isaiah fast. He seems to instinctively see that Isaiah’s not a bad kid. Isaiah just needs a little help. A little guidance. Joshua is willing to give that help and guidance. He’s willing to help Isaiah find a better, more honorable road.
But Joshua’s not going to push Isaiah down that road in a stroller. For Isaiah Wright to go forward, he must walk. He must work. He must sacrifice just as men–real men–must do.
It’s not easy, this road. Joshua knows it all too well. But it’s a worthwhile journey. And if done right, the destination is beyond compare.
The Forge’s own narrative journey is as straight as the flight of an arrow. The film does not dally. It does not scamper down subplot rabbit trails. This film is all about the remaking of a young man.
Joshua is the prime human architect of that remaking. When the two first connect, the fitness company president asks Isaiah three important questions: In what ways do you want to grow in the next year? What kind of man do you want to be? What do you want people to think when they see you? Those are important questions not just for Isaiah, but for every man alive.
And we should keep in mind that this company president probably had plenty of other ways he could spend his time. It’s hard and time-consuming to keep a company such as Moore Fitness moving forward even in ideal circumstances. And, as we learn, those circumstances are far from ideal right now. But despite the challenges his business may be facing, Joshua’s still happy to sacrifice his precious time for Isaiah. And as the two eat breakfast together once every week, Joshua feeds Isaiah a lifetime of experience and wisdom, too. He teaches Isaiah how to introduce himself. How to treat others. How to take on new responsibilities.
Joshua’s spirit of charity doesn’t end with Isaiah. Moore Fitness is deeply involved with charitable works around the globe. For the president, profitability is not an end unto itself, but rather a catalyst for giving.
Closer to home, Joshua and his wife volunteer regularly to help the city’s poor and hungry, and they soon encourage Joshua to join them. (He does so and loves it.)
We also learn that Joshua has mentored several other men in the community, encouraging them to be equally mindful of addressing needs—be it the needs of a community halfway around the world or the needs of one young man halfway around the block. (Those men now form a group called The Forge, and they meet regularly to encourage one another.)
“You need to be more a fountain than a drain,” Joshua tells Isaiah. “You need to be giving more than you’re taking.”
Joshua wasn’t always like this. The president admits as much to Isaiah, and that the values he embraces now were hard and painfully earned. He’s well aware that becoming a responsible man can be a bumpy, messy journey—and that gives him a measure of grace in dealing with Isaiah, who suffers his own share of bumps.
[Spoiler warning] But Isaiah pushes on. And by the movie’s end, Joshua’s not the only role model: Isaiah becomes one, too. He works hard and well. He sacrifices his own comfort and time to help others. He shows newfound appreciation for his mom and becomes a real leader at work. Maybe most importantly, he apologizes to people he hurt or was rude to in the past—and does his best to make up for his mistakes.
Those “Positive Elements” we just unpacked above? Most, if not all, are inescapably linked to The Forge’s undergirding sense of faith. We can’t hit every spiritual element here—they’re packed in tightly, from almost the opening scene to the closing credits—but we’ll try to give you a taste.
All the positives that Joshua brings to the table—his mentorship, his charitable work, the sacrificial way he uses his time—is baked into his faith. He’s engaging in what the Christian Church calls “discipleship,” which The Forge’s creators—Alex and Stephen Kendrick—says is the film’s primary theme.
But Joshua is far from the only Christian role model we see here. Cynthia is a woman of deep faith. And as she worries about her son, she brings in spiritual reinforcements: Miss Clara, the unrelenting prayer warrior from the Kendricks’ 2015 film War Room.
“We can’t treat prayer like some spare tire that you only pull out in an emergency,” Miss Clara tells a circle of women. “No. Prayer has to be more like the steering wheel that you hold tightly every day no matter where you’re going.” She leads the women in prayer for Isaiah in the middle of a hair salon. And when a customer inquires whether the place is a “hair salon or a prayer salon,” Cynthia says, “Today it’s both.” (The woman is quite pleased; she needs both, she says, adding, “My hair needs to be delivered and set free.”)
It’s not the last time we see Miss Clara. A frantic night of work at Moore Fitness is also covered in her prayer (and the prayers of others), and some “miracles” take place during the evening (though a cynic might rather point to hard work and happenstance).
And naturally, Isaiah begins to show an interest in faith as well.
Earlier in the film, Isaiah waves the idea of Christianity away. “Church, that’s your thing,” Isaiah says. But as Isaiah sees how Joshua’s character springs from his beliefs, Isaiah quickly moves into a more accepting place.
Soon, he’s dedicating his life to Christ (an event that, not-so-coincidentally, corresponds with Miss Clara’s prayer circle). And soon after, he’s sacrificing plenty of his favorite pastimes, believing that they’re threatening to distract him from God.
And on it goes. The hard call of forgiveness is another important theme in The Forge. Gratitude and sacrifice form key elements, too. And as Isaiah processes the absence of his own father—and the scars that absence created—Joshua reminds him that “God is the perfect Father. He loves you more than you know. You can trust Him.”
We hear Bible verses quoted and referenced, including from Galatians 5, Ephesians 6 and Matthew 28.
Early on, Isaiah makes the moves on a young, female barista named Abigail. When the owner of the store enters the scene and asks if there’s something he can help Isaiah with, Isaiah says that “I’m just trying to talk to the young lady here.”
“That’s my daughter,” the owner says. Words are exchanged, and Isaiah ultimately leaves in a huff. (Later, Abigail and a much-changed Isaiah meet again, and the movie suggests that, this time, the trajectory of their relationship—whatever that relationship might be—is on a much more positive line.)
Shortly after Isaiah accepts Christ, he starts shedding things from his past that might distract him. Some of those are, apparently, pictures on his phone. “Yeah, you gotta go,” he says as he scrolls and deletes. “You definitely gotta go.” (We don’t see those pictures, of course, but we can guess what they might depict.)
We learn that Isaiah’s dad cheated on his mom.
Joshua’s son died in a car crash—killed, we learn, by a drunk driver. “I wanted to get back at the man who killed my son,” Joshua confesses to Isaiah. “I hated him. I wanted him to rot in his cell.” But Joshua eventually remembered God’s words: Vengeance is mine. And Joshua made the difficult decision to forgive.
Isaiah plays violent, shooter videogames early on in The Forge, and we see some very short, and bloodless, snippets of those games.
None.
As mentioned, Joshua’s son was killed by a drunk driver. We learn that Isaiah’s father had a drinking problem, too.
Several workers stay operational during a long night of work through caffeine. Later, one says, “I’ve got enough caffeine in me to go ‘til next Tuesday!”
“A big part of becoming a man is showing up,” Joshua tells Isaiah.
The Forge shows us just how true that is. Isaiah’s father hurt Isaiah just as much by what he didn’t do as what he did. “He made all these promises,” Isaiah says. “[He’d] stop drinking, get a job, pick me up from practice—all lies.”
But as much as Isaiah doesn’t want to be his father, Cynthia sees Isaiah turning into him. He fails to show up and return his mom’s car on time. He oversleeps and shows up late for work. The process of becoming a dependable man isn’t always easy, and Isaiah’s story arc shows its ups and downs—but that arc ultimately lands in a positive place.
In 2002, brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick took $20,000 and the blessing of the church they worked for—Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia.—and turned it into a full-length movie. The finishing touches were put on the film Flywheel at 6 a.m. April 9, 2003, just hours before its premiere.
Since then, the Kendrick brothers have released eight more full-length movies, and in so doing helped upend and expand the Christian film industry. It seems like every time the Kendrick brothers release a new movie, Hollywood prognosticators are a little flabbergasted by how successful it is. Every few years, we’re reminded that little Christian films can generate big profits.
Not that the Kendricks are in this business for the money: They’re in it for the souls. Throughout their career, they’ve kept their focus tightly honed on their audience (Christians) and their mission (biblically rooted encouragement). And while there might’ve been a time when they would’ve enjoyed making a lavish, CGI superhero flick, those days are long gone.
“We realize that some people are not going to like our movies, and we are totally OK with that,” Alex Kendrick, director of The Forge, told me on The Plugged In Show (in an episode to be released Aug. 22). “But those that do, [those] that we can encourage and help go deeper in their faith, praise the Lord.”
And that’s really what The Forge is all about: An exhortation for Christians to go deeper.
“The Lord doesn’t need more lukewarm churchgoers,” Joshua says. “We need more believers who are wholeheartedly following Jesus.”
Why? Joshua shows us every moment he’s on screen. We see what total commitment costs—and what harvest it reaps. We see how one man can completely transform another man’s life—and how that transformation can exponentially grow. According to the Pew Research Center, 210 million people in the United States identify as Christian. Can you imagine what would happen if every one of those 210 million people were as committed to Christ as Joshua? If they gave so much of their time and treasure?
From an aesthetic viewpoint, The Forge is probably the Kendrick brothers’ most complete and polished work. Certainly, this film is made for Christians: The movie’s very clarity of purpose will be a difficult sell for some outside the faith.
But for those within that faith—those who’ve felt Christ’s tug in their lives but perhaps haven’t yet taken the full discipleship plunge—The Forge can be both encouraging and convicting. And it reminds us all that Christ didn’t come just to save us; He came to transform us, so that we in turn can help transform others. He asks us to die to ourselves so that we can help others find new life, and new hope.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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