Flywheel

Jay Austin sells used cars and lies to his customers as a matter of routine. He hides the mileage, conceals the faults, and changes the price according to who is buying. The business is not growing, his marriage is bad, and one day he decides to drop all of it and trade honestly. When he does, the profit falls. The subject is not religion but the price of honesty. The best passage is Jay calling the customers he cheated one by one and refunding the difference; each conversation is its own small scene of shame. The form is amateur throughout. Flat light, a simple camera, a cast mostly facing one for the first time. The sermon is delivered directly and the film never routes its message around anything. The story of the production is more interesting than the film. A church congregation in Georgia raised the money itself, the budget was around twenty thousand dollars, and it was shot on a domestic camcorder. The director, Alex Kendrick, was on the staff of that church and took the lead himself. This is counted as one of the starting points of the American faith-based independent wave; the same team went on to far larger box office. Who it is for: viewers curious about American faith-based independent cinema. Who it is not for: anyone after production values or narrative subtlety; the film is technically weak and states its message plainly.