Change Your Image
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Reviews
The Cross and the Switchblade (1970)
Last 30 minutes changed my life....but please read the book instead!!!
The last 30 minutes of this movie are powerful and really show God at work. The hour and change before that last half hour though is pretty corny stuff and fortunately I was spared seeing that until a much later date.
Here's how God changed my life through this film. On television my wife and I saw the last 30 minutes of this film late one night. I'd never heard of the film, the book, David Wilkerson, Nicky Cruz, or anyone involved in this film. But I watched anyway. And it was incredible.
After that night the film stayed in the back-burner of my mind but I never watched the rest of the movie. One day, in a thrift store I stumbled across a paper-back copy of The Cross and the Switchblade. I had not realized until that moment that the film was based on a book nor that the story was true! I read the book and was impacted like I have never been by a 20th century novel. I had been a Christian over a decade by now but never realized in or offered myself to or given my TRUST to the power that the Holy Spirit provides us! I have been saved a decade but the public boldness for God, after a few negative experiences, eventually wore off and I just wanted to get along with people of different or no faiths and pray for their salvation. This book showed me exactly how weak I was for not trusting God and for minimizing the Spirit's power to a mere fraction of a fraction of what It can do in our lives. Thank God for this book.
Back to my movie experience. After finishing the book and making my wife read it (and it affected her just as strongly) we decided we'd better watch the entire movie. Our expectations were high, because we knew the last 30 minutes were great. Annnnd our expectations fell with each cheesy scene. We wondered if we had been out of our minds when we were first drawn in that late night when we saw the end. But the movie still packs that same huge punch in that closure. Too bad it took a lot of corn and cheese to get to that part.
What I realize from all this now is that God specifically SHOWED US THAT LAST 30 MINUTES ONLY! Had I seen the movie from earlier on I never would have finished it and I certainly never would have picked up the book when I found it. God's timing is perfect!
Closing thoughts: I wish that the movie hadn't made so many "catch-all" characters; one character that is supposed to represent 2 or more people from the true story. It really hurts the impact. I also don't understand why so much was changed or added. The book itself is so cinematic and a faithful adaptation would be an incredible story. I know that all movies change or add things but there is so much real life drama from the true story that this didn't need any of it. Also, I know that Nicky Cruz went on to become a famous evangelist but I wish that the movie had focused less on him and told the story of more people. In the end it became mostly a story about Nicky, who is active for bringing people to Christ, which is wonderful, yet I wanted to hear more about others!