The true-to-life background of this cautionary teen tale from Hemisphere Entertainment is the rather incongruous pairing of The Power Company Kids Club in Pontiac, Michigan, and the GunnPoint ranch in Colorado.  The connection?  Brothers John and Randy Gunn, the former ministering to urban kids at risk of deepening gang involvement and prostitution, the latter ministering mostly to families through music and “mounted shooting” rodeo events.

When young Kids Club member Korina has her family brutally wiped out by her father in a suicide-murder, John Gunn and his wife Michele seek the help of Randy and wife Heidi, who happen to be in town performing at a county fair.  Together with aspiring thief Rey, gangsta wanna-be Anthony, and Anthony’s already-in-too-deep older brother/mentor Marcus, Korina heads West with Randy and Heidi to work horses for the summer.  Along the way, John hopes, the four will not only have a brief respite from the pressures that face them, they’ll also learn about “friendship, mutual respect.”

A lot the facts this story takes for granted are not always apparent to the audience.  For instance, when a Power Company van is confronted at gunpoint by gang members in a dark alley, nobody is the least bit freaked out.  It’s apparently as normal as putting on one’s shoes.  But it’s not explained at all, and the scene is very jarring.

Audiences might also find it unusual to watch an uplifting family film in which characters stroll past strip clubs, pastors pack pistols, and John Schneider goes unshaven.  For a good part of the film’s middle section, much of the emphasis also seems to be on how beautiful the Colorado scenery can be when there’s a six-figure motorhome rolling through it.

There are clearly some startling realities behind this project.  John and Michele truly do some daring and heart-wrenching work in Pontiac; Randy and Heidi also have a very unique and refreshingly off-beat ministry.  That they’ve found a way to merge the two, in some instances, is also very inspiring.  It’s easy to see how someone was readily convinced that this story needed to be told.

The problem is that it just isn’t told very well.  In spite of a decently lengthy resume, producer/director Ralph E. Portillo stages some scenes so confusingly that you might not exactly be sure who’s talking to whom—or whether all the people involved in a conversation are even present.  Several of the performances also seem completely perfunctory and misplaced.  Former A-list model Jennifer O’Neill, for instance, is far too plastic as Michele Gunn—and always seems dressed for a night on the town in Manhattan, not hangin’ with the homies in Pontiac. “Man, this is like… this is like a movie,” says Rey at one point.  Uh-huh.

From the standpoint of production values, though, the film looks decent enough, even if the sets are consistently lit like a sitcom.  Randy and Heidi Gunn, as themselves, hold their own decently enough for non-professional actors, and Richard Roundtree as their main ranch hand is a welcome (if slightly rusty) presence.

The best part is the kids themselves, particularly Ronnie Alvarez as the full-of-himself-and-other-stuff Rey and Ary Katz as Marcus.  I was totally convinced that these kids, and their onscreen peers, knew the streets as well as the Gunns knew, well, guns.

Does it all ultimately work as a film?  I don’t think so; but I honestly don’t know, as the screener I was sent cut out at the 75-minute mark.

I also don’t know if the Big Message payoff is there.  You can tell a mile away that when Pontiac’s thugs finally track down their missing cash in Colorado, Rey and his homies are bound to get some comeuppance—and I just bet Roundtree has a hand or two in the resolution.  But will it really play into the “mutual respect” theme?  Hmm.  I wish I knew.

My recommendation: treat the opportunity to see Set Apart as an chance to be exposed to something you haven’t quite seen before.  It might even be good for your kids to see how the other half lives, regardless of the half to which they belong.

Just don’t expect this to be overly entertaining or involving.  The artistic problems are simply too much to overcome.

Set Apart is unrated, but it is Dove Family Approved.  Bear in mind that the gang-and-prostitution setting may be a little too eye-opening for some youngsters.  Know thy children well.

Courtesy of the film’s distributor, Greg screened a promotional DVD of Set Apart.