I don’t think I’ve come across a movie with a title as curious in recent years as Alan and the Fullness of Time. This Ohio-made indie was created for a predominantly Christian marketplace so, fairly or unfairly, I went in expecting more emphasis on the message than the storytelling. I figured the titular “fullness of time” would be a larger lesson about using the time God has given you, seizing the day and such, or maybe even related to time travel (no such luck). What I got certainly felt like it was far from the fullness of its own meager running time and ideas.
Alan (Brooks Harvey) is a normal teenage boy except he isn’t. His parents belong to a Christian sect that has for generations plotted to protect a special savior. Alan wants to live a normal life, hanging with friends and going to parties, but he is thrust into a war between heaven and hell. After an attack at home, Alan is on the run to learn about his identity and accept his destiny.
This movie is maddeningly unclear in just about every aspect of storytelling. It feels like you’re watching a Mad Libs version of a story with missing blanks where there should be essential information. It seems like Alan is a classic Chosen One archetype along the lines of a Christian Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. Writer/director Markus Cook (The Deceived) repeatedly reminds the viewer how important Alan is in the larger scheme and how special he is but this is never fully explained except in very general terms meant to apply to any person watching, contributing to the idea that every life is important. That works as a comforting message but it doesn’t work explaining why Alan alone is so special. Likewise, if he’s so special and in hiding, why was he allowed to leave the house or go to a public school? The character would be far more compelling if he was a recluse not allowed to leave the house because his parents were overly protective with good reason. Sending the Chosen One that demons are looking for to a public school just seems careless (not an indictment on the quality of education). For that matter, why do these demons even bother waiting to attack? The Act One break involves demons attacking Alan’s parents and forcing him on the run, but if they’ve already infiltrated his school and are posing as his friends, why are they waiting? These are the kinds of things that add up and make a plot feel careless and under developed, and it starts early and often with Alan.
This lack of clarity extends beyond the first act and muddles so much of the conflict and characterization. After Alan’s parents are harmed, why does he not go to the police? What reason would he have for hiding at his school? He doesn’t know his fellow students were demons, at least not in a fully confirmed way of this hidden world of monsters. For that matter, why is Alan on the run and there is national media attention given to what happened to his parents? What reason does he have to not resort to the police? It would make far more sense for the demons to frame Alan for the violence at his home. That way he would have a reason not to turn to the authorities and make him feel more isolated and hunted. He would be limited seeking out help and refuge. This would also better explain why anyone even remotely cares about finding this kid from a media standpoint. I can’t imagine round-the-clock media updates on where the son of one crime has been if he is not clearly the chief suspect. Alan spends much of the rest of the movie learning about his parents’ hidden life and his own part in a larger war, but the world-building is far too vague for a story involving hidden conspiracies of good guys and bad guys. I think the movie is presenting an alternate world where some Christianity is outlawed by the government but this too is flagrantly unclear. Are these people being persecuted for their beliefs? It doesn’t feel like it onscreen aside from a few snarky comments from Alan’s teenage peers about his perceived boring life (and remember, they were really demons). Regardless, there is a branch of the NSA (or some other acronym) that is being run by a a centuries-old demon with Jedi mind trick powers, and yet even this is unclear too. What are the rules here? What are the limitations? What are the objectives? What are the stakes? If you’re presenting a “hidden world” story with powerful creatures and faith as a weapon, then we need a lifeline to grasp.
Alan is a fairly boring blank of a character. He’s angry because he keeps moving schools and feels like he doesn’t fit in, but once he’s on the run Alan becomes a receptive set of ears for people to fill him in on the power of faith, God, and his divine place in the world. Will Alan triumph? You know the answer but I can’t exactly explain it beyond him simply having more faith. Frankly, this character is not interesting enough to warrant a franchise. Even his vague powers as a Chosen One are not interesting enough to warrant further adventures. The most interesting character, by far, is Weston (Lucas Bentley) and he could have been cut completely from the narrative. He’s introduced early, apparently trying to escape to… the Chinese border for… reasons I’m still unsure about from the opening that literally begins with footage and audio of 9/11 (this inclusion is never fully earned and, at best, quite tacky). He was part of the same splinter group that Alan’s parents belong to, but Weston lost his faith after his wife was killed. He seems like he’s on a redemptive arc, the old gunslinger being called into one last battle to save a youth and find something worth fighting for. This doesn’t exactly happen but this setup made Weston the character I knew the most about, who had the most accessible struggle, and who could have easily been the lead perspective of the movie rather than the vacant Alan.
I think the filmmakers were going for a combination of an indie Christian YA character and their own version of a Jason Bourne spy thriller (you better believe I’m trademarking the term “Jesus Bourne” for future franchises). This would not have been the first indie to treat a Christian protagonist as a fugitive being hunted down for their beliefs, an externalization of a self-persecution complex I’ve never personally understood when a majority of Americans identify as some form of Christian. This scenario plays into the fears of its ready-made audience and it at least also provides a ready-made story for danger and intrigue. Rarely, however, have I seen a Christian indie that seems so taken with providing the “other half” of a Bourne movie, and by that I mean the desk jockeys clacking keyboards. With every Bourne movie, there is the Chief Chaser and his or her team of NSA agents manning banks of computer terminals and tracking down the whereabouts of our target. In normal spy thrillers, these moments provide scene changes and exposition, but they can also ratchet up tension as we, the audience, know how much closer these antagonists are getting to our hero. With Alan and the Fullness of Time, there are numerous check-ins with the agent half of this pursuit but it never raises tension or provides helpful clarity about the world or this agency. Part of this is because the boss Malkam (no first name, just… Malkam) is established as supernatural too early. Do the other agents know they’re working for a demon? Detective Lowell (Brittany Picard) pushes back occasionally saying they are misusing their government office, but nobody else seems to give much mind. I even think the end involves a siege of a church with literal gunshots and people killed, but again, the movie is too vague to clarify whether or not this escalation and the consequences made much sense.
It’s not like there wasn’t room to better develop this story, its world, the history and lore, and the characters. Alan and the Fullness of Time clocks in at 82 minutes, but for my online screening, the first three was an introduction by the lead actor, and if you wanted to discount opening credits and a minute of closing credits before a mid-credits sequence (why?), that means that Alan is actually approximately 76 minutes of material. There was more than enough space there to better flesh out, well, anything. If it was a concern about budget limitations, I don’t fully accept that because budget doesn’t limit how well you write for characters and conversations. The movie concludes with “Alan will return” and the promise of a sequel with a very Percy Jackson-sounding string of subtitles, Alan and the Rulers of the Air. If I had paid good money to watch this movie, I might be chuffed that the movie wants to carry over into a sequel when they didn’t even have enough material for 76 paltry minutes.
The dialogue can often be painful and stilted. For an action movie, there isn’t very much action. Most of the scenes from the Act One break onward are people chatting in cars, people chatting in churches, people chatting in homes, people chatting on the street. That would be great opportunities for the needed clarity and characterization lacking. It doesn’t help when these conversations include clunkers like, “At least we have that in common – dead parents. At least half of mine.” Dear reader, that line made me outwardly wince in pain. At another point the villain shows up with armed guards and says, “This is real lead and real brass, and they will pump you full of it.” Alan says he doesn’t have time and another character says, “Time has you, Alan. It has all of us. And it’s squeezing.” In reference to his school friends, who I remind you were demons that harmed his parents, he says, “They’re not my friends anymore.” Well, that’s good to know given the circumstances. Alan turns on a turncoat and says, “You sold me out. No wonder you can’t call us family.” I was a little worried about the implications of the line, “If you can pray, then you can fight.” At the conclusion, a character asks Alan how to teach her how to fight, and he hands her a bible, and we cut to credits. These are just the examples that stood out to me of bad dialogue. If we’re left with these characters and their thoughts, it is apparent that the filmmakers just were not equipped to provide them with appealing words to speak.
I don’t blame the performers because it feels like they were all following the same poor direction. Everyone in this movie is so subdued that I thought they would slip into a coma. This is intended to be a spy thriller, a chase movie, a world where demons can take human form and hunt the Chosen One, and nobody seems to be acting like it’s urgent. This does a tremendous disservice to establishing and maintaining tension. It completely saps the energy out of the movie. If the characters aren’t anxious or worried, then why should we be watching them? It’s too early to land a verdict on Harvey as an actor as this is his debut. I hope the future adventures of Alan provide the actor a better showcase and more energy. I want to single out one actor who was only onscreen for a few minutes but left quite an impression. In a movie filled with vague evildoers that seem too low-key, Kira Wilson (The Right to Remain) is definitely felt as the spooky principal to Alan’s school. She has a fun malevolence that is missing from the other bad guys and I can tell the actress is enjoying her wicked side. We could have used more of her.
I will credit the filmmakers for making a film that looks and sounds like a professional movie. The cinematography by Josh Bedsole doesn’t have a lot of focus depth but it looks crisp. The persistent hand-held camerawork provides an extra dose of energy to the proceedings and is another reminder of the film’s aspirations to be its own Bourne-style escapade. It’s a low budget movie, all things considered, but it doesn’t feel glaringly so that it’s distracting or compromising. The best part about the movie is the score by Josh McCausland and Jake Halm that adds excitement when it’s not being felt otherwise from the writing and direction. At points the electronic-infused score even reminded me of the work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Alan and the Fullness of Time doesn’t really justify your own investment of time. When you don’t provide enough explanation for your world when it’s different, when you don’t make it clear what the rules and limitations are, and when you don’t produce relatable and engaging character arcs, then you’re not really making a movie and more so making an inaccessible puzzle for the audience to piece together for their own fledgling entertainment. Alan and the Fullness of Time is not exactly an audience-friendly movie, despite the fact that its core audience will likely ignore its storytelling pitfalls because it admires its core message. I can feel the lack of storytelling finesse, as if the filmmakers shrugged and said, “It only has to be good enough to get us the next one.” I’ll even admit that the clips for the upcoming sequel look much more enticing and action-packed, but I haven’t been given enough from the first movie to hold out faith the second will deliver. This could have been Jesus Bourne, people.
Nate’s Grade: C-