It’s been fascinating to watch the rise, and evolution, of the faith-based movie over the years, and director Jon Erwin has been a part of that. He’s carved out a niche for himself, collaborating with his brother Andrew and focusing on true stories with a musical element, including “I Still Believe,” about Christian music star Jeremy Camp, and “I Can Only Imagine,” about the band MercyMe. The Erwin brothers also co-directed the documentary “The Jesus Music,” which has a direct tie to his latest narrative feature film, “Jesus Revolution,” which focuses on the same topic, the Jesus movement that took place in Southern California in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
For “Jesus Revolution,” Jon Erwin co-directs with Brent McCorkle, the writer of “I Can Only Imagine,” the pair working from a script by Erwin and Jon Gunn adapted from a book by Greg Laurie and Ellen Vaughn. Laurie is, in fact, the subject of “Jesus Revolution,” played by Joel Courtney. But the film, which is part biopic, part period piece depicting a larger movement, juggles three different subjects while trying to tell the story of the Jesus movement, including Laurie, Laurie’s mentor, Chuck Smith, played by Kelsey Grammer, and hippie evangelist Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie).
As depicted in “Jesus Revolution,” Smith and Frisbee were huge influences on Laurie, a young teen growing up in Newport Beach, California, with a troubled mother (Kimberly Williams-Paisley). When a comely young hippie gal, Cathe (Anna Grace Barlow) breaks him out of military school, Greg dabbles in the drug-fueled hippie lifestyle, before a few near-death experiences find he and Cathe searching for something more, a different kind of high.
