I am...Gabriel

My very first movie review!  This is certainly exciting.  So, this movie is about a mysterious little boy who comes to a depressing small town.  He is on a mission to bring hope.  With the title and cover, it is pretty obvious that the boy is a malak (angel / messenger in Hebrew).  While the "I am Gabriel" phrase is from the Bible, I would have preferred if the ellipses were taken out or the "am" was in lowercase letters.  The whole "I AM" is reminiscent of Exodus 3:14.  However, all throughout the movie, the character playing Gabriel does not take credit.  He gives all the glory to "God" and even says "I am just a messenger."  Phew!   No problem then with Colossians 2:18.  On the whole "God" topic, I was a bit annoyed when there was all this talk of "God" and "Lord" and not much mentioning of any NAME.  Sure, there were some crosses in the background and even the mentioning of "church," but I wanted to hear a NAME.  Luckily, towards the end of the movie, the Name "Jesus" and "Christ" came up.  While I personally prefer the Hebrew Yeshua, at least there was some pointing to Christianity with "Jesus" and "Christ."  Whenever people say "Lord" and "God," I think, "Who are you talking about?"  So, that was taken care of.  Also interesting was the notion of "prayer mats" in the movie.  Gabriel encourages the townsfolk to have prayer mats so they remember to talk to "God" more.  While this is all good--I am sorry--but the first thing my mind went to were Islamic prayer mats.  And Gabriel's middle-eastern-looking button down outfit did not help.  I am sure this was just coincidence, but I got a good laugh out of it.  That aside, I would say this movie is "family friendly."  There was not swearing, and there was no sexual content.  The women dressed modestly in the movie, which was a plus.  The only immodest instance was when a woman bent over to pick up something on her porch.  For a bit, the viewer was able to see down the top of her dress.  This seems to be a mistake on the costume department and not a purposeful thing.  In terms of the acting, the little boy playing Gabriel did an excellent job.  The other actors did well, too, but Gabriel outshined them all.  The scenes were also very well-made to be realistic.  You could tell the crew tried to make it lifelike...particularly with the open box of pretzels on the sheriff's desk.  I enjoyed the song at the beginning with a woman singing in the background.  For the rest of the movie, there was mostly instrumental background music.  I would have preferred more vocals in the background, but that's just a preference of mine.  Overall, this is a fun movie for all ages.  It has hope, miracles, and a great story.