Late One Night (2001)

When a stranger arrives in a small diner, he must face the wrath of obstinate unbelievers, forcing the stranger to defend Christianity, despite their numerous attempts to undermine his faith. That's the storyline of a short Christian film called Late One Night, written and directed by Dave Christiano.

I have enjoyed Christiano's previous work, but there is a trend in his films of too much talking. They are often short on cinema and long on dialogue. This was excessively apparent in the feature film Unidentified and is somewhat apparent in Late One Night. Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, Late One Night is overly talky, but still effective in its message.

The leader of the unbelievers, played by Brad Heller (who also appeared in both of The Moment After films) berates the stranger, played by Josh Gaffga, continually and repeatedly stating how fake Christians are in their actions and words.

The payoff for the film is nicely done, but Heller's character has a lot of important, albeit inaccurate assumptions of Christians and the stranger does little to answer his detailed concerns and, instead, answers with generalities. That being said, the film could have lost a good 10 minutes and it would have been far more effective.

I commend Christiano for sticking to his guns and making Christian shorts and features for about 20 years. He's truly dedicated to his mission and his faith. He's doing what I wish I was doing, making Christian flicks for a living.

Gaffga sits quietly, listening
to Heller's berating.

I also respect Christiano's loyalty to his actors. Filmed six years ago, a few of the leads in this short appear in Christiano's weekly half-hour Christian series called 7th Street Theater, airing on TBN Sunday nights at 11 p.m. EST.

Late One Night is a good Christian flick with interesting subject matter and lively discussion points. I only wish Christiano would put down the typewriter every once and a while and pick up a pencil and a blank storyboard and figure out how to tell his stories visually.