Amazing Grace and Chuck

This film is made in 1987 and an all star cast including Joshua Zuehlke as Chuck and Alex English as Amazing Grace.

I saw this one movie Amazing Grace and Chuck which is about a young boy named Chuck Murdock who gave up baseball and an NBA player on Celtics named Morris Amazing Grace Smith who gave up basketball. These people both gave up something that they greatly loved for a protest. They did this to have a global reduction of Nuclear weapons to zero.

Chuck who a star pitcher on his little league team quit baseball in protest of nuclear weapons. Chuck made this decision after he and his class were given a tour of a nuclear missile silo. Chuck and his classmates were given this rare opportunity because Chucks father is good friends with a congressman. Chucks father is an Air Force reserve jet pilot. While the children were given this opportunity of seeing a missile silo the congressman was telling them of its schematics and power of this atom bomb. The children did not quite grasp the significance of its power. Near the end of the tour Chuck asked the congressman, his friend what was so important about this bomb when his father could carry nuclear weapons. The congressman said that basically any person who could carry a weapon could carry a type of nuclear weapon and that when these bombs where compared to this atom bomb that they were just toys. When Chuck asked how his fathers jets nuclear bombs were just toys compared to this one the congressman answered by saying to imagine his mother and sister doing the dishes and his sister drops a fork at the exact same time this bomb goes off before the fork hits the floor everyone in a fifty mile radius is just vaporized. Now this knowledge given to anybody can send shivers down their spine but this is a twelve year old boy who lives by a nuclear missile silo. This kind of knowledge is frightening so he decides to do something about it. In a playoff game Chuck just decides to protest the nuclear weapons by not playing and that thus forces the team to forfeit.

This incident was published in the paper but no one paid any attention to it except one guy named Amazing. Amazing went to talk to this boy in Montana that refused to play baseball in protest against nuclear weapons. Once Amazing and the boy talk Amazing decides that this is a worthwhile cause and so a week later he quits the Celtics. Amazing also buys an old barn and land and decides to stick it out with Chuck.

For awhile it was just the two of them but then others joined. First it was two NFL players from the dolphins then there was more. More and more athletes across the nation joined Amazing and Chuck on their protest then it spread across the world. These athletes included the Soviet nations, like East Germany. This act of protest against nuclear weapons was felt in every sport and, so a lot of fans where upset about this.

With all of this happening the government tried to stop this. They tried to stop the protest many times by first trying to reason with Chuck even the President tried to do this, then they tried blackmail by using Amazings close friend his manager, that only made Amazing mad, and so in the end they tried murder. The death scene was one of true dignity. Amazing boarded a plane thought to be sent by his friend he called to thank her she told him that she did not send the plane and in a true moment you can see in their eyes that this is the end. Amazing told her he was going to hang up and tell the pilots to land even though it may not be what they think it is, but it was and the plane exploded right after he hung up.

On the day after this Chuck is told what happen and is asked if he is going to make a statement to the press. In this moving speech Chuck says that this is not going to deter him and that he will miss his friend. Now he does not actually say the words that he will go it is just that as he was giving the interview with press in front of his house he said and I quote, I am sorry I cannot speak anymore. It may not have those exact words but that is all I can really remember is that he basically said he cant speak anymore then did Amazings sign of three fingers in the shape a W and kept his mouth shut then his little sister did the same.

Chucks protest against speaking because of his friends death prompts all of the children world across to stop speaking at all. In addition to no sports being played there is now no talk coming from children. They will write down what they want to say and do their homework but they will speak no words.

The world was now falling apart the children wont speak, the athletes wont play, and now the parents refuse to go to work all of this in protest of nuclear weapons. So the two nations who started this nuclear arms race is now the only ones who can end it before the protest can go into full swing because the children just recently within a week stopped talking and the parents strike only begun. So the U.S.S.R. and the USA sat down to do a plan to end this. The first one they came up with was to reduce 15% in the first year then in seven years all of the nukes will be gone. Chuck said no wrote no on a piece of paper because a lot of things can happen in seven years and while the getting is good they should now end all nuclear weapons.

Of all of the sleeper movies I have seen this one has stuck with me because of the ending not because of the drama and the plot but because of the message that it sends. This message is one of hope and forgiveness and the knowledge that one person can make a difference. For the climatic ending of this wondrous film it has the document signed and the whole world watching the opening game of Chucks little league team and the President of the United States giving Chuck the ball and saying, no one expects a strikeout it has been a year after all. Chuck then raises the sign of Amazing and slowly so does everybody in attendance and then Chuck says very low as if to himself, Hello Amazing and then he throws the ball. We dont know if the ball was good or not or even if he gave a strike that is not what is important. What is important is that we have the ending that everyone wants, peace. All of the nuclear weapons are disarmed and now there is a true chance for peace, for world peace and in the end that is much better than wanting to know whether or not there was a strikeout.

At the beginning of the credits there is a quote from Amazing saying, But wouldnt it be nice. I leave that as my last thought of this film wouldnt it be nice to have this in our reality. Peace.

I wrote this long analysis of this film because in these times we need hope. We need to have hope that we can have peace and in a way this film gave me this hope. Even if it takes a thousand years I know that one day we will have peace but wouldnt it be nice to have it now. One person changed the world in this film, he started a protest to end nuclear weapons and to prevent what one day we all fear may come true total nuclear war. One person one started it and in the end everyone wanted it. So if they can do it why cant we. Why cant we have what we all want, peace. Peace so simple a word that means so much to all of us. Nuclear weapons a word that sends shivers down all of our spines. Both of these words have something in common, we can make them come true. One person made peace possible in this film so why cant we have that in our world.

But wouldnt it be nice

Amazing Grace