Mormon filmmaker Dutcher returns after 2001's Brigham City (about a serial killer) with his second film, involving missionaries living and proselytizing in Santa Monica, a surprisingly hard-hitting story that interweaves narratives threads involving gang warfare, sexual temptation and falls from grace.
Elders Lozano (Serricchio) and Farrell (Flesischer) are living in an apartment overlooking Venice Beach, with Lozano marking off the days until his mission is over and Farrell eschewing even a pickup basketball game with his fellow LDSers to keep his nose buried in the Book of Mormon.
They seem stereotypical until they're caught in a gang crossfire. As they tend to the wounded Carl (Stephens), it's revealed that Lozano used to be a vato himself, while studious Farrell shirks from acting in the true spirit of Christianity.
While Carl recuperates, the pair come across the neighborhood bum/street preacher, Louis (Ikeda), lying in an alley. Again, Lozano convinces Farrell to act, and the two take him home. This brings them, and especially Farrell, into closer contact with the woman next door, Holly (Emmers), whom they believe is a nurse (it turns out she's an actress with a role as a nurse).
Naturally, Carl returns from his near-death experience with an interest in what motivated the Mormons to help him; Louis sobers up and resumes his life as a minister; and Farrell is tempted by the smitten Holly.
Where the film deviates from the stereotypical Mormon movie, however, is Dutcher's desire to hew closer to realism. (At least with the plots involving Carl and Holly; the one involving Louis simply doesn't hold up to even cursory examination.)
While Carl works toward his baptism, his younger brother is enraged that Carl won't seek revenge and takes matters into his own hands, leading to his death. This, in turn, sends Carl back into the arms of his gang, possibly spelling the end to his quest for salvation.
Similarly, with Farrell and Holly, we see the young missionary giving in to the actress. And, as with Carl, bloody tragedy will be the result.
Dutcher succeeds in conveying his characters' moral anguish, even to nonbelievers, but the film suffers from a plodding pace and the extraneous Louis plot. As Mormon movies go, it's an accomplishment; as mainstream film goes, it would benefit from an extra hand in the editing bay.