By Jacob Sahms
One night, a man named Pete (Bradley Gosnell) enters the hotel room where Gid (Daniel Floren), a Gideon Bible, exists, waiting for hotel guests to interact with him. But on this night, Pete has a gun and bad intentions, based on a dream relationship that has broken down, and Gid will face the questions that haunt all of humanity. Where is God when it hurts?
What we learn about Pete over the course of sixty minutes provides us with more than enough evidence to help us identify his pain. His religious upbringing, his disconnected family, his romantic relationship’s destruction – we can relate to the different questions, the absolute anger, the reactions he has to Gid’s arguments. There are some elements of life that can’t be explained away, but that cause us to have to choose (or not choose) faith. Pete is in that moment, the crucible, as he speaks to Gid.
Pete is not ignorant of the Bible. In fact, as we’re shown here, he’s quite fluent in it, and that makes the struggle he feels even more deadly. He doesn’t need to be convinced of what it says but rather what it means, and how it impacts him. It reflects the need for faith, not just knowledge, and the film highlights how the real struggle comes when real life shows a darkness that can’t just be reasoned or explained away. That’s why the film provides more than just entertainment or answers; it demands that we consider both what we believe and how we use Scripture to explain to others what they should think (or to explain away their hurt).
Directed by Raja Gosnell and Alicia Joy LeBlanc, the film’s claustrophobia (99% of it exists inside of the hotel room) makes us feel the tension palpably, as both Pete and Gid know what is at stake. With life on the line, the audience can see that if Pete doesn’t change before he leaves the room, that his life will never be the same. People of faith can feel the angst of the struggle, having been in conversations where their words didn’t feel adequate, or even enough. People who have been hurt by the church can recognize that the questions they’ve had are universal, not cut and dry, not easily brushed aside – that they are not alone.
That may be the beauty of Gun and a Hotel Bible, that the film works on so many levels, just like the Bible. It’s the Word of God and words written down by humans; the story of God and an arrow to the Word of God that is Jesus; it’s historic and still moving. And it requires those who read it to make a choice and determine how they’ll respond.
Gun and a Hotel Bible demands mature audiences to ask tough questions about their faith, while also discussing mature content including periodic strong language.
