‘Rule Breakers’ Could Have Stood to Break Even More Rules In This Formulaic Drama
(REVIEW) Angel Studios might be the most unpredictable company in the faith-based film space. While other studios like Kingdom Story Company and Sherwood Pictures have clearly defined niches and identities built around inspirational stories for Christian moms and families, Angel Studios is a bit all over the place. Some of its material is strongly faith-based (“Sound of Hope”), while others barely mention God (“Sound of Freedom”). Some of its movies are clearly geared toward families (“King of Kings”), while others are solidly PG-13 (“The Shift”).
“Rule Breakers” is another film that exists in a bit of an odd middle ground. It’s an inspirational sports drama based on the true-life story of Afghanistan's first all-female robotics team. Yet, while it seems tailor-made to be the kind of film that only faith-based families will enjoy, it portrays religion and traditional values in such a way that it almost can’t help but turn those families off.
The film follows Roya Mahboob, an Afghan woman whose passion in life is giving young girls a chance at a better life by teaching them computer programming. She decides that the only way to gain popular support for her endeavors in a patriarchal society is to start a women’s robotics team and win global competitions. But this will be harder and more dangerous than she suspects.
It may go without saying, but the movie has a worthy message based on inspiring real-life people. It’s great to watch people working together to give women an opportunity to get an education and expand their opportunities. Particularly, as the film highlights, many places around the world are removing these opportunities from women.
The protagonists are generally likable, and the story hits all the beats you expect from an inspirational sports drama. One particularly welcome element the movie highlights is that such positive change on behalf of women takes a partnership between both men and women — something refreshing to see onscreen because many feminist films portray men and women as enemies.
There’s also a lot of complexity in the real world that they pack into a fairly simple athletic drama structure. According to the movie, one major reason Roya’s home country of Afghanistan had opportunities for women is because of America’s military presence, which helped hold back Islamic fundamentalists. Yet, the specter of Sharia law is always present, particularly if America ever leaves (which, as we know and the movie acknowledges, it did). So the heroes have to overcome people’s prejudices as well as the fear that they will face repercussions from extremists. One great scene shows Roya debating whether she should fight for opportunities for the girls there or focus on getting them out of their country, given all of these challenges.
The main problem with this movie is that it’s pretty dull and formulaic in the way it tells its story. I’m sure I’m not the only one who will make this somewhat cheeky observation, but for a movie called “Rule Breakers,” it breaks zero rules in its storytelling — except, perhaps, the rule to be entertaining.
Everything is written, shot, acted and edited in a very paint-by-numbers style, checking boxes for the feminist sports drama genre without adding any style or creative thought. The characters are likable but two-dimensional. Roya only ever talks about her mission, so we never get to know her beyond that. No real character development is given to her brother or any of the girls, so we only get to know them as basic archetypes. Nearly every line of dialogue is a collection of clichés designed to move us from one formulaic plot beat to the next.
There’s a moment that shows what I mean. When Roya goes to the classroom of her new computer class and finds it empty, before being escorted down to a larger room filled with young women who want to learn, it restores her hope. The way it’s shot, she comes down to the basement, then the camera cuts to the young women she sees, followed by a cut back to her relieved face. A better filmmaker might have made more interesting choices. For example, they might have stayed on Roya and had her walk through the seated students so that we stay on her emotional reaction while slowly revealing row after row, showing just how many people are there. This would extend our emotional response and allow it to build as the numbers are slowly revealed.
This is one of the most common problems in faith-based movies today. While faith-based films in the past had bad acting and writing, many today are decently competent in those areas but are just boring. Movies like “Bonhoeffer” and “Between Borders” fall into this category. In many ways, this is a sign of growth in the faith-based industry since they aren’t all overtly amateurish. But we shouldn’t pretend that they don’t have a long way to go to match their secular counterparts.
Their treatment of faith and values also has issues. Faith is rarely portrayed unless it’s as a barrier to female emancipation. One of the girls has an emotional crisis, fearing that God will be mad at her because she touched a boy, and wonders if He will forgive her. Roya assures her that He will. But since we never see Roya show any genuine faith, it comes off as just something to say to make the girl feel better.
This ends up reinforcing stereotypes that both Muslims and Christians find frustrating. Muslims and Christians are constantly unhappy with how Hollywood insists on portraying religion as the side of oppression and secularism as the side of good. Conservative Christians and Muslims alike also have a problem with “traditional values” of their faiths always portrayed as problems to be solved by liberalizing secular values.
This runs into the “audience problem” that Angel Studios keeps facing. It knows that its biggest fans are conservative Christians who see the studio as an alternative to secular, liberal Hollywood.
But Angel Studios clearly doesn’t want to be just a “Christian conservative” studio. All of their movies — whether they’re made by the studio or distributed by them — focus on mainstream or left-coded issues like racism, feminism, foster care, and the like.
Even their biggest hit, “Sound of Freedom,” was based on the at-the-time mainstream issue of sex trafficking. It only accidentally became “right-wing coded” during President Trump’s first term. Probably because of that, the marketing has leaned conservative. This gets them in trouble often, with movies like “Bonhoeffer” and “Sound of Hope” receiving backlash for reaching out specifically to conservatives without recreating the numbers of “Sound of Freedom.”
“Rule Breakers” is a largely inoffensive drama about real-life heroes with a good message. If the film had put as much excellence into its work as Roya’s team did into theirs, it might have been something truly special.
“Rule Breakers” opens in theaters on March 7.
Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.