just watch it!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This is a deeply flawed film, and the biggest one is that Jesus says: "Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!' do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand." This is the main problem I had with the film, other than that the story is fairly solid. However, because of the above, I cannot recommend this film, but if you insist on watching it anyway, understand that just because you think I'm wrong, is irrelevant, the Bible is clear. A movie based on the notion that a guy claims to be Jesus, and purports to be a Christian movie is inherently unBiblical and therefor, garbage in terms of what it teaches theologically/doctrinally, no matter the other merits it has. Contrary to this belief that Christians shouldn't practice doctrine that is currently being perpetuated, our faith is based on the Bible, and if you choose to throw out portions of it for your own personal views, I would question your faith in the Jesus of the Bible, or at least if you even really believe the Bible or the ideas in your own head.A few notes on some aspects of the film.The acting is not great, it is definitely average at best, and the budget is definitely $0 or not far above. One of the things I think is awesome what Christians often do with such a small budget. It could be a lot better, and certainly if the man at the diner didn't actually claim to be Jesus, obviously it would fix virtually everything. Why not just have a bunch of people stuck at a diner and they ACTUALLY talk about the Bible and the real gospel? Novel idea there. I enjoyed the story despite it's flaws and enjoyed it's erroneous message, and I think it is important to remember that a movie that presents any theology, entertainment, should not be top priority, or you will always end up with very bad results on the hole. God Bless ~Amy

As somewhat of an Agnostic who have nothing against Christian movies on principal, I still found this to be a offensively bad, poorly made and biased propaganda piece that did the complete opposite of what it tried to do.The film centers around a small group of different people who find themselves on a forest road in the middle of nowhere, only to find that the main road they are traveling has been closed down due to a storm. Instead they all detour to a side road to find a diner to take shelter in, only to find out that the guy owning it is in fact Jesus. Then he starts to grill them about their hidden dark pasts in an attempt to rekindle their faith.Now this concept in of itself could maybe have worked if it was played subtly. For example, if it was left ambiguous whether or not this man is truly Jesus or not. Perhaps have the protagonists open up about themselves in believable ways by their own will to create an actual on-screen relationship between them, and to give real weight to their decisions to change their ways. Instead, we have Jesus practically forcing his way into their minds and threatening them with eternal damnation, while acting like a straight up sociopathic serial killer and stalker.I can't stress this enough, this is the single worst portrayal of Jesus on film I have ever seen, even worse than Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, and that portrayal was intended to be bad for the sake of comedy. He plays on people's pains and fears to manipulate them, going as far as to force a girl to forgive her sexually abusive dad with threats of eternal damnation and an awful future life, and literally demands the people in the diner to bend to his will. I thought Jesus was supposed to love everybody and ask people to love him back on their own free will?It doesn't help that the protagonists in this movie are all bland stock characters with dull, lifeless acting bringing them to life either. We got our obligatory straw Atheist, the bickering couple contemplating divorce, the troubled girl who is losing her faith due to trauma and the born again Christian who is basically already in Jesus' good graces. But she is ordered to leave her boyfriend anyways because it amuses Jesus and because her boyfriend isn't Christian. None of them feel like real people except for the straw Atheist character, who surprisingly seem to act somewhat rationally to begin with outside of being a massive jerk, before eventually succumbing to the granary.Gluing this story of abuse and misquoting of religious text together is also some really shoddy technical work, that at times is at the levels of a home movie. Cheap stock thunder effects, tons of noticeable continuity errors, an obvious home camera that is carried by the camera operator most of the time, and a sound designer that thinks panning dialogue entirely to the left speaker is somehow a good idea. It looks and feels cheap and amateurish, even for a low budget production.In the end it's hard to even describe what happens in this movie, because it is just really an hour and a half of incredibly uncomfortable or ridiculous interviews with paper thin characters being interrogated by some sort of being claiming to be Jesus. Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the fact that Satan appears in the movie towards the end (named DeVille, because it's that sort of movie) I would have expected the big final twist to be that this is Satan pretending to be Jesus or something.At the end of the day, the movie is terrible not because it is Christian, but because it's a movie that tries to scare non believers and people like me, who find themselves caught between camps, to repent. Hell, the film itself states this outright. As such, it not only ends up as an absolutely dreadful viewing experience (unless you riff it the entire time), but also a disservice to religion as a whole. It unknowingly paints Christianity as an evil force that is only marginally better than the alleged damnation you would face otherwise, rather than the positive force in somebody's life it's intended to be.The only positive thing I have to say about this is that it is at least not A Little Piece of Heaven with Kirk Cameron.

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.

I feel terrible that I wasted my time to start watching the movie because the rating was very high. Apparently, a bunch of super Christians rate this movie super high only because of the simplistic biblical content. But even if you don't care about the message of this movie, then every single piece of this movie is an insult to cinema. Actors are horrible, sound effect/soundtracks are very annoying, sound even changes suddenly through a single dialogue, and so on. It would be only acceptable as an introduction to cinema class project. I feel stupid for not reading what the movie is about before watching it only because the ratings were high! So bottom line, if you want to brainwash a kid with Christian propaganda or you go to church every Sunday and rate yourself higher than 9/10 on believer/non-believer spectrum, then have fun but for GOD's sake don't rate this movie high.