‘Brave the Dark’ Review: A Familiar Story With A Bogus Title

Item: Brave the Dark
Rating: 2
Author: JB Augustine

JB Augustine |

Feb 2, 2025

Locked down — Nicholas Hamilton spends a night in jail in Brave the Dark (2025), Angel Studios

Occasionally, we like to draw attention to a film you might be missing out on or we try anyway. Sometimes, something that piques our interest here doesn’t turn out to be as worth it as we thought, and that feels like the case here though I went in wanting to like it.

On the road — Nicholas Hamilton is on a journey in a fast car in Brave the Dark (2025), Angel Studios

Brave the Dark tells the true story of Nathan Williams (Nicholas Hamilton) – if that is his real name – a delinquent with a traumatic past that’s led him down a dark path (hence, the title, I suppose). Falling in with the wrong crowd, sleeping in his car, and facing jail time after stealing electronics from a local hardware store, he’s expelled from school with zero options.

That is until a good Samaritan of a teacher named Mr. Deen (Jared Harris) takes an interest in him, and seems to be the only one willing to help the kid turn his life around. Even his grandparents and his girlfriend give up on him (yikes). Can Deen do the seemingly impossible and reach the inner humanity of the delinquent?

Wave to the People — Jared Harris wishes passersby a Merry Christmas in Brave the Dark (2025), Angel Studios

I feel like I’ve seen this movie before, and if you do too, that’s because we have. Last year, the biggest studio behind Brave the Dark, Angel, released Sight, the story of a Chinese doctor who fixes blindness in children after experiencing the horrors of Communism back home. That was inspirational and showed promise in its trailer, but it came and went from theaters with little fanfare.

Ever since Cabrini, a box office performance like that became a trend for Angel Studios. Their films kept underperforming whether they were good or not, and barely anyone noticed they were released. From Cabrini to Sight to Bonhoeffer to Brave the Dark, each one shares similar themes and a target audience you had to figure was built in after Sound of Freedom.

I applaud their initiative as an aspiring alternative to mainstream Hollywood and a return to lower-budget character dramas. However, a time comes when you have to step back and reassess things because your business model isn’t working.

When it comes to Brave the Dark, the story is engaging and something Angel’s desired crowd should accept with consideration for some mature subject matter. (That horse wandered out of the barn with Sound of Freedom, but I’ll give a fair warning anyway.) That said, it’s not without its problems.

If you know any young people who are struggling with generational trauma and fear they are cursed to be just like their parents, especially their fathers, I highly recommend you take them to see the movie Brave the Dark.

It reminded me of An Invisible Thread: The True Story of… pic.twitter.com/aSPBGyS5Hm
— ThatShouldBeAMovie (@ShouldBeAMoive) January 31, 2025

Aside from being as cookie-cutter as Sight and the rest of Angel’s filmography, Brave the Dark suffers from a so-so script overstuffed with two-dimensional characters. Like so many faith-based films, the lead performances are decent but, surrounded by amateurs, they have little to work with outside each other.

When it’s up to them to heighten the drama, it feels like they go through the motions, after a while. Just when you think Nathan is finally on the right track, something makes him run away again. Case in point, although he does far worse throughout the film, Mr. Deen throws Nathan out for having a party where there’s beer and garbage to clean up. The latter reacts by jumping off a bridge into a river (boy, that escalated quickly).

Jared Harris plays a charming and interesting square – think Ned Flanders with a bit of an edge because of the plot – and Nicholas Hamilton is your standard misunderstood rebel from an 80s teen flick. The thing is they’ve both been in better movies. Even Harris’s Moriarty was more engaging to a degree.

Phone it in — Jared Harris phones it in again in Brave the Dark (2025), Angel Studios

I know there is an appetite for an alternative at the movies (at least reportedly) whether it’s better-quality indie dramas or in the faith-based sphere. However, this doesn’t move the needle any further than the last few Angel Studios releases, and I don’t think it will. You’re better off streaming it or finding a documentary about the story.