I love this movie so much

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Upon watching this film which has Gavin MacLeod in the title role, Robert Guillame as a grumpy neighbor and absolutely no one else you would know, I hit the internet to see if one Jonathan Sperry 1895-1970 actually existed. I found lots of commentary but no article in something like Wikipedia or other sources talking about a real person. I see the credits list nothing based on a biography or autobiographhy. So what are the brothers Christiano handing us here.The problem with a lot of Christian filmmaking is many times it exists in a vacuum. That's a problem not limited to religious themed movies either. In this case it is set in 1970 when all kinds of history I well remember from the time was going on. Not a single reference to anything happening in the real world is made. The story is how a kindly old Christian man played by MacLeod sort of organizes an unofficial Sunday School in his living room for the neighborhood and the impact he has on them. The coda has them all leading exemplery Christian lives in 2008 when this film was released.Did the protagonist exist or his disciples? We are left to wonder. For the evangelical they will not question it. It's not a bad bit of filmmaking. MacLeod and his young disciples give good performances. But adding that coda on to make it real is intellectually dishonest and the Christiano brother know it.For the church audiences only.

This is my first review on IMDb. I've seen most of the mainstream, popular movies for the last two decades. But this movie is the first one that compelled me to write a review! The acting isn't perfect at all times and the interaction may seem unnatural at a few scenes perhaps (if you put your "bad" will/eye or an unnecessary microscope to it, that is) and like some have suggested in earlier reviews you may get creepy feelings during the movie due to the evil things going on in this world. What I mean to say is that we could easily misjudge the characters based on our prior knowledge of certain things that COULD happen in the real world if the story depicted in this movie were to play out in let's say, New York.But if you forget evil persons and watch the movie without suspecting people of being "whatever" you'll find that this is a really inspiring movie worth every dime spent.BTW: This movie is from my standpoint 100% bible-based! And earlier reviewers are IMHO misleading people. People might not like it. But Jesus clearly warned us that there are two paths you may go by.. and there's only one way to heaven, Jesus.God bless =)

The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry is a subtle movie, that goes ever so smoothly that you never miss a step, it is not filled with the action, and special effects that most believes is required to make a good movie. Here is a movie that just drives off at a pace that it keeps to the very end, driving its message of love and the efforts of one man, whose life was a total testimony of what Christ expects from us when he gave us the great commission.The movie has high ratings from critics, and that made me skeptical, wanting to stay away from it because I know that critics don't really like Christian movies because they see it as a source of propaganda. I felt, "here is a movie that they like probable the message is heavily watered down" but that was not the case in this movie, from the set go it started to preach Christ and it ended with Christ.The movie plot is about a 75 year old named Jonathan Sperry (Gavin MacLeod) in the 70s who befriend a 12 year old boy named Dustin (Jansen Panettiere) and his friends Albert (Frankie Ryan Manriquez) and Mark (Allen Isaacson). Jonathan during his time with the boys taught them about Christ, built them up in Christ and used them to touch the lives of those around them, from a bully to a lonely neighbor.The movie does have some little faults; the kid actors were all not in form, because the class of acting that they delivered was way off base. The adult actors on the other hand did a fine job. Then there is the setting and the dressing, it was said that the movie was set in the 70s but it looked more like the 80s to me, but that is my view. The movie directing was done Rich Christiano and the movie was written by him and his brother Dave Christiano. The two are the owners of Five & Two Pictures, who were also the producers of the 2002 Sci-Fi dramedy Christian movie Time Changer.Here is a Christian movie that many like, and it is for a good reason too, it talks about Christ, and the movie leaves an image in your heart, of a man who spent his life showing the love of Christ to as much as he canHere is a movie for you and the family.www.lagsreviews.com

Just watched this film with my sister and her kids. Although there are some interesting moments and for the most part the acting is good. This is, as others have commented, a faith picture. Most of the reviews for this film on IMDb are planted reviews by people who were involved in the making of the film. Just click on their names, most of them have reviewed one film.. this film. Others have cutesy names like RadioFlyer68, which I guess is supposed to make you think "Hey I liked Radio Flyer, maybe I'll like this movie too." Truth is TSOJS isn't really that bad from a movie stand point, it looks good, it's well acted, and like I said it has it's moments. Overall it's no better or worse than many of the afterschool specials of the 80's. But as at least one other commenter noted it's major flaw is that it's a faith picture, where nothing ever goes wrong, the bad guys aren't really that bad, and everything in life is solved by prayer. I was able to suspend disbelief for most of the film, but when it got to the end and the "secret" was revealed I laughed out loud.