User Reviews

The Book of Hosea is one of the most compelling books of the Bible for a number of reasons, one of which is because it's a love story, so it's bound to resonate with everyone on some level. So for this film, a camping trip is used to contextualize the story.

It begins with a few young Christians taken to the wilderness for a weekend by none other than Sean Astin, a great casting choice. The core group gets along well enough, but one character is outed because she's different on the surface. With that said, the characters aren't the selling point, but I think they do good enough of a job that they don't weigh down the meat of the story, which is the story of Hosea.

In it, we get an interesting depiction of Hosea, the trials he endured with his wife Gomer, and the relation it had to God and Israel (or His people in general.) We're taken through the story while the characters react to it in a way that I believe teens actually would. They don't agree with God's ways at first, but once they understand the depths of love He has for us, it seems to make more sense. Willingness to sacrifice. The acting and sets in the ancient scenes are also quite good.

The camping trip may seem to be the weaker element at first, but the characters grow on you because they experience their own changes and growth; but as for the depiction of Hosea and his life, those scenes are engaging and compelling. Additionally, the youth scenes contrast the more serious parts for the sake of pacing and variety, as well as relatability.

Overall, it's pretty good. Not perfect, but the message was what mattered because Hosea's story is touching and poignant.

I was unsure about this movie as far a Christian movie. Once we started it we realized that this was going to be sort of a comedy. I have led many youth trips and several into the woods, and this really hit the dynamic really well. I won't lie and say the acting was good, but the story was. I liked the combining of two movies. One about a youth trip and the other about the prophet Hosea. It was a movie that really communicated the love of Christ for us. I would recommend this as a family safe movie that is moving for a small group.

This movie starts out with a small group of campers from a church going camping and one "outsider" coming along for the trip against her will. She does not want to fit in nor do some of those on the trip care if she does. Through the intervention of the youth leader and his wife and of course a wonderful bible story, hearts are changed.

Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea shows what happens when you have a lack of confidence in your idea of devoting a full-length film to a biblical character many are likely unfamiliar with, and instead, sacrifice its potential by including a needless story-arc that cheapens what should be your primary story. To give an example, imagine if Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ opened, closed, and was frequently interrupted by people telling the story of Jesus's crucifixion around a campfire.

The point is, these frequent cuts during the primary story and attempts to develop a needless story arc distract and oversimplify the core material. Whenever we find ourselves truly involved with Hosea's story, we must resort to cutting back between a youth group and their leaders telling the story around a campfire only for one or more of the teenagers to make some stupid comment about what the characters should do in an unrealistic fashion using "hip" dialog. The youth group is led by Sean Astin's Stuart and the kids are optimistic and nice-guy Steve (Kenton Duty), emotionally fragile Carrie (Sammi Hanratty), the smooth black guy Cooper (Terrence Hardy, Jr.), the game-addicted "Gameboy" (he's seriously never given a real name, played by Creagen Dow), and surly and disinterested Ashley (Savannah Jayde), whom is dragged by Stuart and his wife Beth (Fireproof's Erin Bethea) after learning of Ashley's unfortunate tribulations in life. Ashley has a mother who has had an umpteenth number of boyfriends in a short frame of time, and she shuns personal connections by listening to her music, doing her makeup, and writing off any nice gestures as annoying interactions with people beneath her.

When we see the way the four kids interact with one another, and how Ashley possesses a lack of interest in everything going on, we can see that this sort of contention and lack of a stable bond will immediately direct us to development on the film's subtitle, which tells the biblical story of Hosea (played by Elijah Alexander). The biblical period piece aspect of the film is admittedly a bit cheesy and low budget, but it's the heart of the film and bears its strongest parts. One gets the sense director Kevin Downes and the trio of writers (Dave Christiano, Rich Christiano, and Greg Mitchell) wanted to make the entire film about the story of Hosea, however, felt a bit of a biting sense of urgency to include elements that modernized the overall product with predictable characters and Sean Astin's namesake just to be able to attract more people to the film.

If that's the case, from a business standpoint, I totally understand. From a film analyzing and reviewing standpoint, I still cannot recommend Amazing Love. The film is very poorly conceived when it must rely on its modern actors to carry the story, infusing the story with typical pitfalls and vague personalities rather than characters, and even though it's pretty audacious to note that a film part of Christian cinema recognizes something like a mother flirting and dating numerous men, it's almost insulting how quickly and casually it is dismissed when it is brought up. Sean Astin's presence alone is fun during these moments, but even he can't liven an inherently dry story arc.

When concerned with the scenes involving Hosea, we are given Elijah Alexander's capable but ultimately forgettable performance against a backdrop and setting that feels like a live action mock-up for a new "Biblical Times" themed-park. It's passable, and ultimately the most interesting part of the story, but given the fact that this focus seems to play second-in-line to its modernized counterpart, it doesn't get enough time to get richer, more hearty themes off the ground.

At a paltry seventy-five minutes, Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea certainly can't be judged as a time burden, but given the amount of films released every year, and how many of them that are outstanding and go criminally under the radar, one needs to recognize that time spent on this is detracting from unseen films. However, youth groups and churches will undoubtedly appreciate this film, even if on a basic level, for its inclusion of two ostensibly different worlds that wind up intersecting for a feature film.

Starring: Sean Astin, Erin Bethea, Elijah Alexander, and Savannah Jayde, Kenton Duty, Sammi Hanratty, Terrence Hardy, Jr., and Creagen Dow. Directed by: Kevin Downes.

This film is basically two movies in one: the story of modern teenagers on a Christian retreat in the woods, and the story of Hosea's struggles with his wife and his people in the Old Testament. The Hosea scenes have excellent acting, beautiful scenery, and a deep and powerful plot. The camping-teenagers scenes have cheesy dialogue and terrible acting. It's worth sitting (or fast-forwarding) through the one plot to get to the other. This movie is deep and mature, while still having little sex, violence, or profanity, which is not the case of so much trash produced these days. If you want a clean flick that will make you think, this one's a keeper. I typically dislike Christian movies despite being a devout Christian, because they typically have terrible acting and cheesy dialogue, but the Hosea parts are different. Note that though this movie is clean and is based on scripture, I don't think it's suited for young children. The plot deals with prostitution and adultery (none of it acted on-screen). Kids would just be confused.

Amazing Love is a fictional depiction of the story of Hosea. At the beginning of the film, there was a fictional scenario where a group of youth and a youth pastor and his wife went camping. During this time, tensions were high and it resulted in the youth pastor telling the story of Hosea, which was acted out as the story was being told.

The overall acting, especially of the group of children and the adults supervising the children, and filmography was lousy and mediocre. There were many scenes I felt were out of place. Almost all of the story leading up to the acting out of the lesser known prophet's story was borderline unnecessary and much too long. I was immensely bored and unimpressed with the first 30-40 minutes of the movie. I disliked the characters, even the ones that were meant to be likable, and lots of the dialogue and chemistry felt forced.

Although, I must say, I found the portrayal of the story of Hosea itself was much more entertaining and engaging. I found myself hooked onto the story much more than the story about the kids camping. Even then, there were some scenes that I cringed upon seeing them and definitely some very confusing points and things that could've been done much better, but I was much more impressed with that part of the movie.

The story of Hosea is an amazing one, that is for sure, and I do believe the movie depicted just how hard it may have been for Hosea to go through such a trail. His actor, I believe, was one of the best actors in the movie and portrayed Hosea well. He did seem a bit angry and his resting face was much meaner than I would have imagined after reading the story of Hosea, but that is just personal preference.

Some of the creative liberties that were taken during this movie, I felt, were very in character, despite not being directly mentioned in the Bible. For example, Amazing Love portrayed Hosea as being a potter. Since prohpeting was not a very well like job that most likely wasn't a high paying job, especially if you consider the time period that this story takes place, I think it makes perfect sense for Hosea to have another job that does not involve preaching to the people of Israel and asking them to repent of their sins.

They stayed very Biblically accurate, I believe; they even went as far as to have the actor of Hosea recite lines from the book itself. They mentioned the names of the children of Hosea and Gomer and even explained what their names meant. I would've loved to see the children as characters in the movie and for them to be involved, but I understand that this is a movie about the love of Hosea and Gomer, not the children.

Overall, this was not a great movie, and probably not one I would recommend, but I wouldn't say it's a bad movie either. I believe that if this movie would have had a higher budget and maybe different actors, this could have been an amazing movie that I would show to friends and family.

I was very impressed and touched by this movie"Amazing Love".It is so good to see how God's heart is so much for man. God is very patient, He never forces us but waits for us to turn our heart to Him.Unconditional love that God has for us. Today so many especially young people are looking for this. They may not know what they are looking for though.God put this desire within each man to know Him and express Him. The time of Hosea was very much like the days of Noah and also the same as the age we live in today. I am going to recommend this movie to my grandchildren. Thank you for producing a movie that makes you feel encouraged.

This movie was kinda cheap however there are great significant and valuable lessons displayed. We see the comparison between the biblical account and a group of teens camping out. The biblical account is God communicating to his people the Israelites. God had a covenant with them but regardless of that they kept on cheating on God. This movie does a great job displaying how God was using Hosea to communicate to his people and how that applies to the campers lives and in return applies to our lives. I'm not giving any spoilers but the campers and the bible characters all match up so in the end it's basically the same story with a few modern differences. This is a great family movie, appropriate and educational for all ages.

Great dramatization of Hosea and a story of the enduring love that God has for us. His redemption comes at our moment of deepest shame. This one will seem schmaltzy to the casual Christian and the unbeliever because they just won't understand why/how this message is so beautiful.

Yes the acting in the modern day sections is marginal, and it shows that it had a pretty small budget. However, this is not the reason it is worth your time to see this film.

What I do find silly is that I need to give 10 lines of review material for a film that worth a watch because is simply not typical Hollywood tripe, with either sex, violence, rife profanity or the ever-popular combination of all three. Oh well, there's my 10...

"Hosea: Amazing Love" is an engaging movie about Hosea and his unfaithful wife, Gomer. It explores important themes like love, forgiveness, and redemption. The actors did a good job showing the characters' feelings, especially Hosea's strong love and faith in God's plan. However, some characters could have been developed better. The movie is inspired by the Bible's book of Hosea, but it changes some things. It focuses more on Hosea and Gomer's personal journey, which makes it easier to relate to, but it doesn't capture all the big ideas from the Bible. In summary, the movie is a good way to think about love, forgiveness, and redemption. It reminds us to be forgiving and loving, just like God is to us. It also encourages us to have a closer relationship with God and to show love and forgiveness in our daily lives.

Most may see this is just as another Christian flick. Worse yet, an *indie* Christian flick (and there's very few I've seen worth watching at all). What caught my attention about it wasn't first that it has Sean Astin in it (famous for being in The Goonies and Lord of the Rings), but that the screenplay is done by Greg Mitchell, a recent addition to my favorite authors list (for his Coming Evil trilogy- The Strange Man, Enemies of the Cross, Dark Hour- and his YA sci-fi novel Rift Jump). Even though the main storyline takes place in this time and age, the necessary story takes place in the Book of Hosea, a rarely taught-upon Old Testament book. My guess is churches don't like the idea of teaching that God would even love a prostitute, but in the Book of Hosea, that's what God tells Hosea to do. Not only that, but said prostitute, Gomer, had been considered one of the 100 most beautiful women in all the world of her time. So, why does this story have relevance to Sean Astin's youth pastor's story? Because, after an accident happens to make highly superficial teenage girl Ashley blow up in the face of the other kids, and she challenges them all that they don't know anything about how it feels to have her life, he gives a nice tale of Hosea. But it's not the "Sunday school" version some may have heard. In other words, it's not watered down, it's actually fleshed-out for people to understand very well. How can one know, without reading the Bible that it's fleshed out? One of the campers says he's read Hosea and doesn't remember a part of the story that the pastor mentions. And the pastor admits that what he says isn't in there, but he's giving certain details in there to make it more appreciated for what will happen. Granted, it's not the edgy type of Christian flick like To Save A Life, but it's still interesting enough to catch attention for people who could care less about how others think of them. Yes, it's indie, but not all the performance would tip that off. In fact, even the most typical people (character-wise) have differentials that make them more believable. With the Hosea story, every detail is not only believable, but also historically accurate, notably the time period that the Jews had turned from God and worshiped pagan idols and judged superficially rather than relying on God. In the end, it became a tearjerker, not only with what Hosea does to have Gomer back in his arms and show true agape (unconditional love), but also a shocking secret revealed by the youth pastor's wife and how it all ties to make Hosea all that much more relevant.

Well written and engaging movie that creatively unlocks the beautiful story of Hosea and Gomer. Well done!

The cast are known for star roles today. Filmed well. I am a committed Christian, and showed this with a friend who is not a Christian and he commented about the cast.

First of all, this movie talks about how the Lord would do anything for you, even if you've turned your back against him, how much he cares for you, and how much he loves you. The Lord tells Hosea to marry a harlot, and Hosea being the good man he is, followed the Lord's instructions and didn't hesitate. The Lord would show how he felt, through Hosea. In my opinion, this movie skillfully portrays the lesson as to why the Lord did what he did, and with the modern-day story of the 5 kids, 2 of which hated each other, this lesson would stick to most people, and be applied to their daily lives, although this movie was not made as well as most, the lesson is still there for us to learn from.

Secondly, this movie sometimes paraphrases or goes into too much detail compared to the book of Hosea. In the book, it doesn't say how Hosea met Gomer, or things like that. And sometimes it skips important things that were mentioned in the bible, although it was mildly touched on, like the name of the three offsprings of Hosea and Gomer, and their names and what they represent.

The movie, "Amazing Love", is a really interesting way to depict Hosea that was really entertaining. The quality however was a little low. At times it was a little dry, as in the jokes. However if you look past these minor details, it was a very enjoyable watch. It was about five teens and two adults that took a trip to go camping. But there is a little discord in the group. At some point in the movie the emotions become tense and Stuart, one of the adults, decides to tell a story straight from the Bible, Hosea. They embellished this story a little bit and romanticized it. For instance, they made Hosea have a job as a potter, and they had more of a focus on Gomer and Hosea's relationship than what is actually seen in the Bible. These things did add to the movie however and made it a more enjoyable watch.

Hosea: Amazing Love, Can Never Forget This Love Story When I was watching this movie, I was shocked how much God loves his people.

Kevin Downes made the movie Amazing Love the way that people can truly understand and see the feelings of the characters. Movie reflected the bible and showed us the plot so that we can see how much love God has for us.

First important fact about this movie is that it was reflecting the bible. The bible tells us a story about a man named Hosea, he is a minor prophet that lives in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He met a beautiful woman, but she was a prostitute. God told Hosea to marry Gomer, so he did. Hoes loved her, cared for her, but she would not stop cheating on him. It was hard and painful for Hosea but he understood that that way God was showing how He feels with Israel's.

Hosea stayed faithful to God and he kept worshiping and telling people about God. He was praying and asking God for help. At the end of the story when people finally decided to turn back to God and things went the right way, people can see a beautiful example of God's love for us. The same people can see in the movie the author gave more information, so that it would be easier to understand the story.

From this story I learned how much God loves his people. To see the story for me was much easier, and I understood the story better. The movie helped me to get a few really important things. When I was watching this movie and reading the Bible, I learned how much God wants us to be with him, and how much he wants us to understand how dip his fillings are for us.

This story is important to know and understand because we can see how God wants us to be his people. We have to have our relationship with him the way that we will have our trust like Hosea had, we have to pray and ask God for help like Hosea did. Movie shows us how much Hosea loved God, and how much he cared for people around him. Gomer was cheating on Hosea the same as Isrealites were cheating on God. When Hosea understood that, he didn't get mad at God, so people can learn how much trust we have to have in our relationship with God.