When the movie “I am David” became available on DVD in the fall of 2005, I did not rent it, because the movie reviewers gave it a rating of 2.5 stars or approximately a B-. They could not have been more wrong. “I am David” is one of the best films I have seen in the past five years. When I rented it recently, I ended up watching it a total of three times from start to finish. The movie is very powerful without having graphic violence or graphic language or anything graphic. Instead, “I am David” has a powerful religious message about sacrifice without any religious references per se. It is an inspiring and life-affirming film that I would recommend as five stars out of five stars, or even a 10 out of 10 points. The movie contains no extra, wasted footage that is unnecessary. I will remember seeing this movie for the rest of my life. How many movies have you seen in the past couple years that you will remember for the rest of your life? Most Hollywood output is almost mindless entertainment with very little of lasting value. Against this backdrop comes an astounding movie that seems to have hit the theaters and video stores under the radar screen.

“I am David” tells a fictional story of a family in Bulgaria who are perceived to be anti-Communist, and the father, mother, and little boy age 5 are all sent to separate hard labor camps. The mother escapes through the help of a guard. The father is killed, and the boy spends years doing hard labor and is treated like a prison inmate by the guards at the work camp. The young boy is practically ready to give up on life and willing to try to escape, even if it means he will be shot in the process. Fortunately, he receives assistance from another labor camp inmate in his mid 30s and is able to escape. The labor camp inmate is played by none other than Jim Caviezel, fresh from his portrayal of Christ in the movie “Passion of the Christ.”

Nearly every character in “I am David” is perfectly typecast and memorable. Joan Plowright, the widow of Laurence Olivier, is cast as a Swiss amateur painter that David meets along his journey. Her character is so warm and appealing and comforting that it boosts the morale of the viewer just to know David has come in contact with her. The actor paying the villainous labor camp commandant is cruelly perfect for the role, the young actor who plays David is excellent and appealing to watch on screen, the actor who plays the prison guard does a wonderful job of showing us the complexity of that character. But no one stands out as more perfectly type cast than Jim Caviezel in his support actor role. For a variety of reasons, anyone who sees this movie will never forget Jim Caviezel’s character.

The movie has some similarities to “Finding Neverland.” In both movies, there is a charming boy around age 10 in a leading actor role. Both movies have a religious message, although the one in “Finding Neverland” is slightly more obscure. The religious message in “Finding Neverland” is to give Kate Winslett’s dieing character a chance to glimpse Heaven before her death. In “I am David,” the religious message comes out in a scene at the end of the film that is called “The Truth” in the DVD scene selection guide. In that scene, David comes to realize how much people have sacrificed so that he might live, escape from the labor camp, and find a new life with freedom. I can’t tell you the content of that “The Truth” scene without giving away the ending of the story. But suffice it to say with Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus being sung in the background, no viewer will ever hear that melody again (it is the same tune played by many of the network television news programs to begin and end their coverage of Pope John Paul II’s funeral each day) without thinking of “I am David” and the everlasting beauty of the greatest sacrifice known to man.

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