Machine Gun Preacher

It's been a while since I had a film come into my in-box that was "based on a true story". This time it's a look at the Sam Childers' life from being a Hells Angel to setting up an orphanage to help boy soldiers caught up in the Sudanese civil war.

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MACHINE GUN PREACHER is based on the true story of Sam Childers (Gerard Butler in a tour de force performance), a violent, drug-dealing biker whose faith leads him on a path to East Africa, where he finds his true calling as a machine gun-wielding protector of hundreds of refugee children.

Following a brutal incident, Sam’s loyal wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) encourages him to turn to God and he resolves to change the course of his life. Renouncing his hell-raising ways, Sam journeys to Sudan as a missionary to help with the relief effort, leaving his best friend Donnie (Michael Shannon) to take care of his wife and daughter. There, he witnesses the atrocities that the locals endure at the hands of the vicious Lord’s Resistance Army. Villages are razed to the ground, women are raped and children are kidnapped and forced to serve as child soldiers. Horrified by what he sees, Childers becomes an avenging angel set on protecting the innocent. Inspired to create a safe haven for the multitudes fleeing enslavement he restores peace to their lives and, eventually, his own.

MACHINE GUN PREACHER is directed by Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, Quantum of Solace, World War Z) and stars Gerard Butler (300, Law Abiding Citizen, Coriolanus), Michelle Monaghan (Gone Baby Gone, Somewhere, Source Code) and Oscar®-nomineeMichael Shannon(Revolutionary Road, Take Shelter, Man of Steel). The film features Souleymane Sy Savane (Goodbye Solo) in a breakout performance as Childers’ right-hand man, Deng. The film is produced by Relativity’s Robbie Brenner, Safady Entertainment’s Gary Safady and Craig Chapman, and GG Filmz’s Deborah Giarratana, with Gerard Butler as Executive Producer.

Shooting into UK cinemas on November 4, 2011.