‘The Cross’ ** 1/2
Arthur Blessitt is a Mississippi-born evangelist who wanders the globe toting a 12-foot wooden cross on his shoulder. He has been doing it for 40 years, starting in Los Angeles, where he had a Sunset Strip ministry, and he has carried that cross on every continent.
Blessitt is the focal point and pretty much the only voice in Matthew Crouch’s engaging documentary, “The Cross: The Arthur Blessitt Story.” Crouch occasionally pipes up as narrator, noting “it’s almost conveniently easy to write him off as a wacko.” But that’s the last thing this affectionate documentary does. Blessitt comes off as a perfectly sane, good-humored and tolerant pastor who discovered a unique style of ministry and stuck with it.
Blessitt has a million anecdotes about touching streetside conversions and dangerous moments from his trek through 52 war zones (he’s full of self-verified statistics). There was the time street fighters threatened him in Northern Ireland, the near robbery and murder in El Salvador and a CNN-captured visit to Beirut during the 1983 Israeli invasion. A clearly bemused Yasser Arafat lets Blessitt pray over him.
As sweet as the guy plainly is, by not questioning anybody other than Blessitt, the film lacks credibility. And by not giving us details of how the ministry is financed or the simple logistics of all this travel, the film leaves questions hanging.
True believers will certainly take more inspiration from this story than others. But Crouch has filmed and edited (much of the footage was Blessitt-provided) a lovely if somewhat repetitive and overlong appreciation of the way one man decided to put his faith into action.
MPAA rating: G. Running time: 1:32. Opening: Friday.
