
Fans of the Christian pop duo, KING & COUNTRY, or even those with a thin interest in the musical style might find the drama Unsung Hero (2024) quite captivating. For the rest of the audience, it seems like a poorly stylized version of a story that is entirely about fighting tough times and how significant and inspiring the concept of family has always been.
I mean, what a family it is. The film focuses on the massive Aussie family that not only drives the story but also provides the machinery for the film. Joel Smallbone, one of the two singing brothers, co write and co-directed the film alongside Richard L. Ramsey. He also acts as his real-life father, David Smallbone a husband, and music promoter who moved his children and a very pregnant wife from Sydney to Nashville during the early 90s in a dream to make it big in America. (A younger actor, Diesel La Torraca, plays Joel as a child who wants nothing more than to be on stage.) If this may not have satisfied the viewer’s interests and imagination, the last parts of the movie indicate that some of the family members played small supporting roles throughout the film’s plot.
But this is no music biopic nor even an origin story, although a lot of struggle in the plot depicts sister Rebecca trying to get a record label to sign her because her stunning clean sounding voice could help get the family out of the financial mess.
This, as the title suggests, is a tribute to the person who acted as a glue to the family when it literally was falling apart matriarch Helen Smallbone as played by Daisy Betts, who portrays optimistically and authentically. Unsung Hero revolves around the peaks and valleys in the efforts of the Smallbones to leave their heads over water in a different country, but Helen’s resilience as well as her religious beliefs provide a steady strand. Kirrilee Berger is particularly effective in the casting of Rebecca as she is quite alike Betts, making their relations look real in the mother daughter role.
We already know these handsome and skilled people will be okay even before they are able to step into their neighborhood church and get to the truly compassionate local community who will stand behind them during hard times. It is all very encouraging to the Christian audience that this is aimed at and predictable from the plot perspective.
What is interesting also, however, is that it is not a workmanlike direction and episodic script where there are no real tensions at all. Things take a turn for the worst, Ego takes over.
Feeling angered that he has moved one part of his family to the other side of the world to a vacant rented house, with no career opportunities appearing on several fronts, David feels depressed and embittered. So he lashes at one of the church members, whom he feels is rather a over pampering St, also with his good looking wife who is often in Hallmark Channel or Great American Family shows, Candace Cameron Bure. on one instance, even Helen too, in a very rare fit of rage, berates David in one instance.
Marketing Hero had the potential to include much more of that sort of raw emotion. Yet to rescue the story, it has the duty of presenting every bit of it in a wholesome manner that the entire audience including kids can enjoy so it tries to play it safe and does not go too deep. Parents and Rebecca apart, there is a conspicuous absence of any properly defined characters even pathetic ones, all the other kids are just quiet and perky. Joel Smallbone has limited screen time while portraying what must have been a difficult character that takes a lucid presence, only his directorial choices, like, Ramsey, remain bland.
That being said though the 90s costume designs felt accurate, what with the amount of horrible sweaters we can see, and the pop music from the time such as Jesus Jones and Seal is spot on even though it is also a bit cheesy.
In most instances, the film Unsung Hero does what David Smallbone himself never accomplished. It takes the safe route.
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