Witnesses

I wish I could give Witnesses a higher rating. After all, it means well, and the acting is good. However, as a film, it's a little messy. First of all, it's a frame story, so there's that element, and then they have three different accounts they're trying to tell at the same time. Plus, in addition to all that, they also jump around in time within those accounts. It gets confusing. And I feel like they tried to cram too much into the movie. I'm fairly familiar with the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I imagine Witnesses would be quite confusing for someone who isn't.

It was good to see that the movie did not just gloss over the negative events of that day. And did not hide the fact that the witnesses all had issues with Joseph Smith and left the church.

An inspiring but realistic portrayal of Joseph Smith and the three primary witnesses of the gold plates and the Book of Mormon translation process. The movie does not pull any punches when it comes to the conflicts, controversies and imperfections of the early leaders of the church. The story flashes back and forth a bit too much which may be confusing to those unfamiliar with Church history. Overall, the movie does an excellent job of portraying a fascinating slice of American history that more Americans should know about.

The film focuses on real people as they live through extra-ordinary events, The history aspect is more a backdrop in the lives and emotions of the characters. Too often, Church History genre of films are overshadowed by speculation, conspiracy, or are too focused on depicting key points in their portrayal of historical figures, actions, events and their context. Refreshingly, this film did not go there, leaving the audience to be entertained rather than schooled. This movie is about people, not a Prophet, nor a Church, nor a book (though these 3 things play a crucial role and are portrayed with painstaking historical accuracy in my opinion.) But as such, the film may leave unfamiliar movie-goers with lots of questions about the Prophet, the Church, and the Book of Mormon. For example, my wife asked whether the early Church didn't baptize woman.

I can't believe some reviewers ase calling this factual in any way. It really proves that Mormons don't know their own history other than the sugar coated stories they're told as children.

This movie is not historically accurate, it's more fan fiction which would be fine but it claims to be accurate.