Hometown resurrection

The Resurrection of Gavin Stone might be a tough sell to audiences prowling for sensuality and shoot’em-ups: The lone reason for the film’s PG rating is a crucifixion image. Brett Dalton’s charming performance in the title role, however, livens a predictable plot that’s short on melodrama but long on the life-changing power of forgiveness.

A charge of drunkenness and disorderly behavior lands Hollywood celebrity bad boy Gavin Stone (Dalton) in his Illinois hometown with 200 hours of community service at a local church. Mopping a bathroom floor, he meets Kelly (Anjelah Johnson-Reyes), the pastor’s unmarried, 30-something daughter who’s directing the church’s Easter play. A web search for “Christian testimony” furnishes Gavin the jargon (“I felt something missing—I guess you could call it a God-shaped hole”) to talk his way out of janitorial duty and into the play’s lead role of Jesus.

The rest of the cast are churchgoers as square as Gavin is suave. Kelly tries not to fall for him, but Gavin’s Biblical illiteracy—the chief ingredient of the film’s humor—hardly fazes the star-struck cast members. One introduces himself as the disciple Peter.

“Disciples?” Gavin falters. “Oh yeah, the guys in the painting.”

In his holy role, Gavin sees his vanity in a new light. But just as he’s warming up to Christianity, a big-time television director courts him for a show that shoots in Los Angeles on the same weekend as the Easter play performance. Will thorns choke out the seeds sown along Gavin’s spiritual path?

A compelling side story lends welcome gravitas to an otherwise breezy film. Gavin moves back in with his unbelieving father (The Middle’s Neil Flynn), whose personality and lifestyle couldn’t be more different than Gavin’s. The two have hardly spoken to each other in the years since Gavin’s mother died.

A brief scene with a rockin’ worship band notwithstanding, the film reinforces the stereotype that the body of Christ consists of pews full of stiffs who could use a splash of neon lights. Perhaps. But the fact is both Hollywood and hometown have no hope outside of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.