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Stars make compelling 'Case for Christ' based on life of Arlington Heights native

Look in the background of many scenes in Jon Gunn's faith-based drama “The Case for Christ” and you will see a bright, white light streaming in from the windows.

It's in the kitchen of Leslie Strobel (Erika Christensen).

It's in the study of Lee Strobel's (Mike Vogel) deceased father.

It's in the living room when Lee humbles himself before his wife as he accepts the God he has rejected for so long.

In each scene, somebody sees the light. And it is good.

“The Case for Christ” tells the dramatized true story of Strobel, a hard-bitten atheist and journalist who worked for the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune before becoming a believer and evolving into a teaching pastor at South Barrington's Willow Creek Church, a Christian author and spiritual lecturer.

How he transitioned from an atheist to a Christian faithful supplies the movie's main plot. In two related subplots, Lee as a Tribune reporter covers the case of a gang snitch accused of shooting a Chicago cop, and Lee can't forgive his aging father (Robert Forster) for years of neglect.

All three storylines come bundled in the same thematic wrapping: Assumptions can blind you to truth.

As a young new reporter at the Trib (the movie never mentions the Daily Herald, but does show us a copy of a 1968 Arlington Bulletin newsletter Lee produced as a kid growing up in Arlington Heights), Strobel has the world at his fingertips.

He has a devoted wife and daughter (Haley Rosenwasser), and a son on the way.

One night, his daughter chokes at a restaurant. A nurse named Alfie (L. Scott Caldwell as the wise, ethereal character usually reserved for Morgan Freeman) saves the girl's life and claims that God guided her to that restaurant.

Mike Vogel plays journalist Lee Strobel (Mike Vogel) in the fact-based drama "The Case for Christ."

Leslie befriends Alfie, who invites her to the Willow Creek Church at the Strand Theater. (The church actually met at the Willow Creek Theatres in Palatine.) As Leslie becomes committed in her belief, her husband throws a tantrum.

“This is not who we are!” he thunders. He thinks Leslie has fallen for the Christian cult.

Trib editor Ray Nelson (Brett Price) advises, “Give her the facts and she'll find her way back to the truth!”

So, Strobel sets out to muster the evidence needed to convince Leslie that nothing can prove Jesus Christ came back from the dead. Leslie will snap back to reality.

To be charitable, “The Case for Christ” has the look and feel of a made-for-Lifetime Channel feature, right down to the self-centered, misogynistic husband who can't accept his wife as her own, autonomous person. If she won't conform to his definition of a wife, he says he'll bail on their marriage.

Arlington Heights journalist Lee Strobel (Mike Vogel) views Christianity as a threat to his marriage to Leslie (Erika Christensen) in the fact-based "The Case for Christ."

As Lee, Vogel makes a credible stand-in for Strobel, but Christensen is the heart of this movie. With eyes that say everything, she takes what could have been a purely reactive character and pumps her with the patience of Solomon and the courage of David.

A few scenes have been cut from Brian Bird's serviceable screenplay (based on Strobel's book), among them a defining moment when Lee, at his 1970 graduation from Prospect High School in Mount Prospect, was told by his father, “I don't have enough love for you to fill my little finger.”

It would have been a nice bookend to the movie's finale, a montage replaying all the pros and cons of resurrection, concluding with Lee asking an expert why Jesus Christ would allow himself to be crucified.

The simple reply: “Love.”

How movie helped ex-Willow Creek pastor Lee Strobel find peace with father

'Case For Christ' brings Arlington Heights' Lee Strobel home

“The Case for Christ”

★ ★ ★

Starring: Mike Vogel, Erika Christensen, Robert Forster

Directed by: Jon Gunn

Other: A Pure Flix release. Rated PG. 112 minutes

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