Forge, The

Story

Nineteen-year-old Isaiah (Aspen Kennedy) spends his time playing basketball with friends, gaming online, sleeping late, and generally ignoring his responsibilities around the house. His single mother Cynthia (Priscilla C. Shirer) has worked hard to provide for her son by running a successful hair salon and doing her best to be both mother and father to Isaiah, but when she sees Isaiah wasting his life, she demands that he get a job or move out.

Isaiah eventually lands a part-time position with Moore Fitness under the mentorship of the owner Joshua Moore (Cameron Arnett). Joshua gives Isaiah daily lessons and sets him on a path of self-development and religious discovery, teaching him that prayer is not a spare tyre but rather the steering wheel that drives your life. He includes Joshua in service opportunities and shares his mission to help fund medical supplies and clean water initiatives, and finance missionaries teaching the gospel around the world.

When Isaiah declares that he wants to be a disciple of Jesus, Joshua brings him to ‘The Forge’, a space where men mentor others and teach them to transform their lives and the lives of those they touch by putting Jesus at the forefront of all that they do. When a business competitor threatens to take numerous clients from Moore Fitness, in a move that will severely cripple the company, Isaiah sees an opportunity to repay the kindness he has been shown by demonstrating faith and the power of prayer to help achieve the impossible.

Themes

Family breakdown; drink driving and the death of a child; irresponsibility; entitlement; rage; addiction

Violence

The Forge has some violence. For example:

Isaiah plays a violent video game, shooting at characters and exploding things.
A character plays a game and shoots at robots.

Sexual references

The Forge has some sexual references. For example:

Isaiah leers at a beautiful teenage girl, clearly making her uncomfortable, as he asks her personal questions like ‘Do you live around here?’
Isaiah tells Joshua how his father cheated on his mother.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

The Forge has some substance use. For example:

There are multiple references to the fact that Isaiah’s father had a drinking problem.
Joshua’s son was killed by a drunk driver.

Nudity and sexual activity

There’s no nudity and sexual activity in The Forge.

Product placement

The Forge has some product placement. For example, Ford Mustang and Nike Shoes.

Coarse language

There’s no coarse language in The Forge.

Ideas to discuss with your children

The Forge is a faith-based drama that, according to the credits, was made to draw people to Christ, in the hopes that more individuals will seek out lives of discipleship and support those doing God’s work around the world. The movie contains many quotes from the Bible, employs the use of prayer warriors, and contains powerful messages about transformation, forgiveness and letting go. There’s nothing in the movie that’s overly inappropriate for younger viewers, but they might find some of the movie’s themes intense and they might not understand some of the lessons. The movie is best suited to audiences aged 9 and older.

These are the main messages from The Forge:

Give more than you take.
Forgive those who have hurt you.
Love your neighbour as yourself.
Allow others to help you.
Be respectful, service minded and devoted to God.

Values in The Forge that you could reinforce with your children are faith, love, forgiveness, responsibility, courage, respect and honesty.

The Forge could also give you the chance to talk with your children about issues like these:

Holding on to anger, resentment and hatred.
Refusing to take responsibility for your actions.
Being disrespectful to others.
Letting people down when they are counting on you to show up.
The excessive use of video games and media devices.