Little Boy is a decent film that I didn't know was a faith-based endeavor until people started complaining about it. Having watched and reviewed Christian films in the past (The Reliant, Left Behind, and The Shack come immediately to mind), films that objectively weren't very good, this movie didn't strike me as being a part of that melieu. It may or may not be, but it is certainly a cut above the others in terms of acting, writing, and production values. If its intent is overtly evangelical, the filmmakers did a good job of making it palateable and provide a good example of what faith films should aspire to if their real intent is outreach rather than preaching to the choir.

Nevertheless, Little Boy is at the very least perceived as a Christian film, and that means it's open season for derisive and cynical critique. For example, some smugly insist, without citing any specifics, that Little Boy is "historically inaccurate." Let's unpack that.

Pearl Harbor was bombed in a surprise attack on December 7, 1941 (coincidentally 81 years ago today) and, as a result, we fought a war against the Japanese in the Pacific. That's straight-up real.

Intrinsic to Little Boy's plot is the notion that innocent Japanese-Americans were mistreated, stolen from, and forced into internment camps before being released penniless and without apology near the end of the War. Yes, that happened.

When these innocent Japanese-Americans were finally freed, they were hated, discriminated against, and outright abused based on the fact that they had the "face of the enemy." Check.

(The book Infamy, by Robert Reeves, covers Japanese-American internment in significant detail. I recommend it.)

In early August of 1945, we used an atomic bomb -- two of them in fact -- in Japan, and one was nicknamed Little Boy. Two cities with which we all are familiar were obliterated. Incontrovertibly true.

Americans were held as prisoners of war in the Pacific theater. Some died and some came home. Most, if not all, were brutalized. Um, yeppers.

That's literally the full extent of the history that's even touched upon in this movie, and none of it is false. Should there have been more? Should the reasons why all these things happened have been addressed? Should events have been better contextualized? Maybe, but that would have made for a very, very long and very different film.

Instead, this movie maintains its focus on the story of an American boy of the era and, as such, doesn't dwell too much on the morality, or lack thereof, of the War in the Pacific and its belligerants. Rather, it spends its time contemplating matters at home and matters of personal integrity, exploring the concept that we should treat all people with kindness and judge all as human beings based on their individual merits. Cries that this is a racist film based on the depiction of things that really happened simply don't hold up. Cries that this must be a racist film because it's connected to Christianity are even dumber and reveal more about the complainant than about the film itself.

Where Little Boy fails, to the extent that it fails at all, is in its simplistic vision of a very complicated world in which faith usually doesn't move mountains but, instead, helps us to climb over them, and sometimes even then with great difficulty. Had the filmmakers resisted the urge to offer up a traditional happy ending with smiles and hugs and happy tears all around, it would have been better for the overall effort. A smidgen more imagination and, dare I say it, inspiration might have led to an uplifting ending that didn't undermine everything that preceded it.

Without doubt, Little Boy sports themes rooted in faith, but that's not all there is to it. As a work of cinema, it's so much more. Still, if all viewers can bring to the party is an abiding hostility toward God, religion, and the devout, they'll miss all good stuff and will instead stretch for criticisms that are poisoned by ideology and not informed by what's actually presented. And that's really a shame.

Ya know, I pride myself as a macho strong, independent man, I don't have a pick up truck nor have I engaged in caber tossing like they do in that Scottish athletic games, but I don't easily cry while watching a film, no matter how sentimental it can get. The last time I shed tears was when watching "Armageddon" the scene in which Bruce Willis said goodbye to his daughter played by Liv Tyler. But my holy freakin' goodness, LITTLE BOY had me literally crying like four times at the screening, four times, man! And ya know what, I didn't regret it at all. This is a very powerful, inspiring, can-do film, led by child star, Jakob Salvati whose talent is bigger than his appearance.

From co-writer/director Alejandro Monteverde, LITTLE BOY is about an 8-year old boy, Jakob's character, Pepper who believes that he has what it takes to bring his father home from WWII alive. He and his father are really close, so when his father (Michael Rapaport) leaves for war in place of his oldest son, it sets off events in that family, in that community, in that small town that will get them all learning about tolerance, faith, and love. Jakob is given a task by the local priest (Tom Wilkinson) and this list of assignments are supposed to help bring his father back, one of them is for Pepper to befriend the only Japanese resident, Hashimoto (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), it's an uphill task for Pepper seeing that his older brother and the whole town are blaming Hashimoto for the war.

Christian community might see this film as something that they can encourage their members to go to theaters and see with their families and I think they should, but LITTLE BOY is not a Christian film. It also wrestles with the idea of believing in one self, one's will power. But what's great about this film is that it doesn't take sides, it only goes to show that many people hold different beliefs, doesn't always mean that some are more right than others. This child actor, Jakob, blew me away. He's so effortless, you feel his pain and agony, Jakob makes it so easy for us to feel sad for Pepper, makes us want him to be a better kid each day. If you're looking for a good cry, LITTLE BOY is the prefect movie for you, it's a tear jerker but not in a sense that it alienates certain audiences, because anybody who's dealt with loss or separation, anybody who doubts the idea of a mountain-moving faith, can relate to LITTLE BOY.

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This time last year, we were granted with "Heaven is for Real," a miserably schmaltzy film that was so overwrought in its intentions and portrayal of emotions that it easily merited a spot on my list for the worst films of the year. This year, however, we have "Little Boy," one of the first faith-based films of the year along with "Do You Believe?," a film that will likely earn a place on this year's list. Films like this should insult the audience, if they are smart enough to know they are being condescended to through the use of soft-lighting and cinematography, an overbearing musical score that lets them know when they should feel happy and sad, and sole lines and sequences desperately made to extract tears from the audience who are temporarily blindsided by the fact that these particular events exists so far outside the ballpark of reality it's playing a different game.

"Little Boy" concerns an America that's plunged in a tumultuous period; World War II's impact and scope is growing, the army needs more soldiers and young men on the frontlines, families are being separated for indefinite periods of time, and Japanese citizens are just being released from internment camps, causing civil unrest. We focus on the Busbee family, particularly Pepper (Jakob Salvati), a stout seven-year-old who is the subject of bullying for his short stature. Despite this, he finds a great connection with his imaginative father James (Michael Rapaport), until he is called to fight in Hiroshima, leaving Pepper with his mother (Emily Watson) and his heavy-drinking older brother London (David Henrie).

During this time, Pepper seeks out ways to exercise and strengthen his personal faith, which a Reverend informs him could help bring his father back. However, this result will only occur if his faith is strong enough. Pepper loves magicians, particularly the great Ben Eagle, who calls him on stage during one of his shows to move a soda bottle. Eagle informs Pepper that the only way to do it is to have incorruptible faith and even the slightest shred of doubt - easily brought on by a crowd full of ridiculing children Pepper's age - will prohibit the bottle from being moved. After a lot of grunting and screaming on Pepper's part, the bottle moves, and Pepper believes the stronger his faith gets, the more likely his father will be brought back home safe and sound. During his journey of self-discovery, he meets Hashimoto (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), an ostracized Japanese man who also helps him recognize his faith.

The level of frothiness in this film cannot be accurately stated. Scenes carry immense artificial weight to them, bathing themselves in beautiful scenery and loud and obvious musical numbers that cast blatant moods of either "happy" or "sad" unto the audience. Throw in Salvati's innocent face, his perfectly combed blonde hair, and his teary-eyed plea for his father to stay home, and you have precisely the kind of emotional sentimentality I hate. Not a single moment in "Little Boy" is genuine, as it all feels conjured up through deliberately facile means of exploiting the audience's emotional complexes. This, in turn, making them think they've seen a good film when they've really just been played for fools.

Shedding tears to a film is something I'm no stranger of; I've probably done it more than a great deal of my peers to films that didn't even upset them. If a film can extract emotion from the audience, that means it has made them care about the characters on screen through numerous different things, including acting, directing, and writing. It's a powerful thing, and when it happens to you, you're almost surprised at yourself. However, "Little Boy" is going for the easily extractable tears. Its emotion comes from the aesthetics and how they manipulate the viewer and not from the characters or the situations themselves. Here, scenes beg weeping and other scenes beg you to have an ear-to-ear smile; nothing is subtle, nothing is left to the imagination.

The film's tagline is "Believe the impossible," which is fitting because that's the only way one will receive much enjoyment from this film. Watching a seven-year-old stand before an enormous mountain and eventually come to move it through his faith may be a cute idea in theory, but to watch it happen, in a film that desperately wants you to believe what cannot be done regardless of how much faith a person has among countless other manipulative filmmaking strategies, makes for a desperately cloying movie-going experience.

NOTE: Take a second look at the title while you're at it too; recall high school history class if you must. It doesn't just mean what you think it means, and because of that, it adds one more frightening element to this film.