
The Prophet Joseph Smith is dead, killed by a mob. Enemies of the LDS Church think the church will die with Joseph. In fact, that danger is a real possibility. The crisis is undeniable, and the saints in Nauvoo are in chaos.
As a current active LDS member, this didn't work for me. For many reasons really. But the main reason is the story is all over the place. I would think based on it's title that it would have spent more time focusing on the six days in August, but much of the movie is just hitting random moments from 20 year period before going through mostly Brigham Young's life and some of Joseph Smith's. But none of these events seems to contribute much to overall narrative, which to be honest there isn't really much of one. It attempts to touch on polygamy but it's a real clumsy effort. Honestly I don't think the film should have gone their if it wasn't going to take the time to dive into the nuances there. It portrays it as if it was widely accepted in the church, when it most certainly wasn't. Despite spending most of its time on Brigham Young's life, I think it really didn't do much to really help show who he was as a person as it was a very surface level look at events in his life, so it feels like that time was wasted. All that aside, it's not terrible. The acting is serviceable most of the time. And it does have some pretty shots as far as cinematography goes. Nothing groundbreaking, but good for this type of movie. But overall it fails because the storytelling fails. 5/10
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