Last Ounce of Courage is a 2012 American Christian drama film directed by Darrel Campbell and Kevin McAfee, and starring Marshall Teague, Jennifer O'Neill, and Fred Williamson.
Years after his son dies in the war, Bob Revere (Teague) prepares to restore the Christmas spirit of his city and challenges its inhabitants to recover the freedom they had lost, in the face of a hostile government figure (Williamson).
Compare to Christmas with a Capital C, another Christian movie released around the same time with the same subject matter.
This film features examples of:
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: The biker gang seen at the beginning, whose member is patched by Bob, look like brutish thugs, but near the end appear again to help Bob.
- Angel Unaware: Throughout the film a mysterious man with a long white beard is seen in the background of some scenes, and gives some words of courage to Bob when he's sitting in jail. At the end the man tips his hat to him and fades away. It's implied that he was an angel or Jesus.
- Angry White Man: Downplayed, but Bob is basically a Grumpy Old Man that invokes patriotism whenever possible and has major issues with how supposedly politically correct everything is nowadays...and he's the main protagonist.
- Artistic License – Education: Bob's grandson Christian shows the film of his dad's last moments to the entire school, which is pretty much a Snuff Film where his father gets blown up by a bomb. Yet he suffers no punishment for it, when in real life such actions would lead a student to be suspended or worse.
- Artistic License – History: The flashback of Bob's son Thomas going to war is stated to have taken place 14 years before the events of the film, and him being killed in action is implied to have happened not long after. Assuming the film's present day takes place in the year it was released (2012), that would mean that Thomas was at least sent to war in 1998. There were no active U.S. troops being put on the ground anywhere in that year, let alone any U.S. troops being killed by hostile action. note
- Back-Alley Doctor: A side-occupation to Bob's job as a pharmacist. He's seen early in the movie patching up a biker's gunshot wound.
- The Cameo: The Reveres watch Bill O'Reilly on TV.
- Casting Gag: Warren "The Hammer" Hammerschmidt's nickname is most certainly a reference to the fact that he's played by Fred "The Hammer" Williamson.
- Clueless Aesop: The film exposits that the ability to celebrate Christmas is how Christians all over America can practice their freedoms, and since secularism makes Christmas illegal, Christians all over America is being persecuted. Like most Christian films about the War on Christmas, the film deliberately overlooks that secular law allows people to celebrate Christmas however they want within the privacy of their own homes and that the government isn't supposed to play favorites with any one religion or denomination (not to mention that a lot of towns in America use tax-money for Christmas celebrations anyway). This results in the "
heroes" coming across as Entitled Bastards throwing a tantrum that they can't make other people celebrate Christmas the way they want to celebrate it. - Cool Bike: Bob's motorcycle, which he rides with the American flag hoisted on it, just to remind you that he's a patriot.
- Death Glare: Bob gives one to a truck driver when he starts singing hip hop.
- Eagleland: Bob believes that he's bringing back Christmas because of his patriotism and the Type 1 version of America. However, most of the film's detractors (particularly non-Americans) believe he accidentally provides an example of Type 2.
- Expy: Hammerschmidt is implied to work for some organization, either gubernatorial or non-gubernatorial. The movie does not make clear which, but some of his comments imply that it's an ACLU-like organization.
- Hollywood Law:
- Hammerschmidt is implied to be either a civil rights lawyer or at the very least have some knowledge of the law, but his accusations against Bob are ridiculously flimsy, and are limited to very broad claims like "breaking the law" or "violating the Constitution" without ever mentioning any specific law, article, or amendment.
- Bob, who is also the Mayor of his town, is stated to have been "fired by the city council" following Hammerschmidt's revelation of his wartime snafu. In real life, there is no such thing. Being elected officials, Mayors can only be removed via impeachment, a recall election, or by voluntarily resigning.
- The church community center's cross got taken down sometime prior to the film's present-day events because "it offended somebody", when in reality no such incident would occur due to being an obvious violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
- The film claims that government property is not allowed to put up Christmas decorations (not even secular Christmas lights) because they're public property. In actuality, however, many cities both big and small put on Christmas decorations, even including Nativity scenes. The Cinema Snob, who at the time lived in Springfield, Illinois (the capitol), merely had to step outside of his house to show that the Illinois capitol building was draped in Christmas lights. In fact, as Cinematic Excrement pointed out, this includes the city of San Jose, a major metropolitan city located in the San Francisco Bay Area region of northern California, which is one of the most stereotypically liberal states/regions one could possibly think of. The caveat is simply that they have to allow for non-Christian displays too if someone wants them.
- Hypocrite: Bob complains to a truck driver that "real" Christmas songs are no longer played on the radio ("real" Christmas music being defined as religious-related.) However, when the driver begins singing a hip hop song that specifically references the Three Kings (and therefore fits Bob's definition of a "real" Christmas song), Bob gives him an annoyed look, causing the driver to stop singing.
- Kick the Dog: After the Christmas tree at the town's center is pulled down, the Hammer stomps on the angel ornament.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Thomas' last tape ends like this, with him and his unit having been killed by a missile.
- Meaningful Name:
- Bob Revere, after Paul Revere, one of the patriots in the American Revolution. An apt name for somebody who believes that his actions are patriotic.
- Christian, Bob's grandson, who convinces him to begin his protest in favor of returning the religious aspects of Christmas.
- My Greatest Failure: Hammerschmidt reveals that, during Vietnam, Bob participated in an operation to free POWs that ended awry. Bob acknowledges it, stating that he didn't detect a tripwire, which killed all the POWs.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: The organization Hammerschmidt works for, which is certainly portrayed as antagonistic to Bob, is never specified, though it's most likely the ACLU or something akin to it.
- New Child Left Behind: Thomas's wife was pregnant with Christian when Thomas shipped off to war. Unfortunately Thomas never got to meet his son as he died in combat.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: Bob apparently works two jobs as both a pharmacist and the town mayor, in addition to being a Back-Alley Doctor for bikers.
- Next Sunday A.D.: The movie seems to unintentionally do this. The beginning flashback has Bob's son Thomas go off to war. Assuming the flashback takes place in 2003 (because this is when the most recent armed conflict at that time, the Iraq War, began), this would mean the movie takes place in 2017 since Christian is 14 years old. Of course, this could just be a case of Writers Cannot Do Math.
- Patriotic Fervor: Bob and the movie in general emanates a Category 5 hurricane of this that would make Michael Bay cry Manly Tears.
- Perpetual Frowner: Bob's face rarely ever changes from his angry scowl.
- Political Correctness Is Evil: Considering how the film is "The War on Christmas: The Movie", this is kind of a given. Bob and his family blame what they see as the distortion of the way of celebrating Christmas to political correctness.
- Recycled In Space: The school's play is essentially an intergalactic version of the Nativity, complete with aliens.
- Romancing the Widow: Greg, the local police chief who was Thomas' friend, begins a relationship with Thomas' widow.
- Santa Clausmas: The mom is clearly annoyed at how, when people do celebrate Christmas (which even then are apparently very few according to the movie), it's purely the secular stuff such as Santa Claus rather than the birth of Jesus, which the kids apparently know nothing about.
- Snuff Film: The recording of Thomas' last message to his wife, which his son Christian projects to the entire school, in which Thomas is shown getting killed by a bomb onscreen.
- Title Drop: Bob states that, before his son Thomas left, he told Thomas to go "defend our freedoms with his last ounce of courage".
- Too Dumb to Live: Some critics have pointed out how stupid and illogical it was for Thomas to film a message for his family right in the middle of an ongoing battle. One wonders whether this actually contributed to him and his squad getting killed because he was distracted.
- The War on Straw: Yet another movie complaining about "the War on Christmas" and other Christian persecution in the United States.
