The film “Unsung Hero” that’s presently in local theaters has a bit of an unsung connection to Waco.
Richard Ramsey, who co-wrote and co-directed the film with Joel Smallbone, attended McLennan Community College from 1995 to 1997, starring in several McLennan Theatre productions before graduating and moving on to a theater degree at the University of Houston.
“Unsung Hero” tracks the background story of Christian musical acts For King & Country and Rebecca St. James in their family’s leap-of-faith move from Australia to the United States in the 1980s. The movie placed second in national box office revenue on its release two weeks ago, and audience response has been warm and positive.
While the juggernaut of larger summer movies is starting to line up with this week’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” and next week’s “IF,” the 46-year-old Ramsey thinks “Unsung Hero” may hold its own for a while. “The audience response has been really tremendous,” he said. “We’re excited about the weekend, with Mother’s Day.”
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In a case of one door opening after another closes, Ramsey, then with Kingdom Story Company in Nashville, had written a speculative television series script whose story was set in the mid-19th century. That led to a proposal to write a Christmas musical set during the Civil War, a project that was on the brink of being greenlit when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Ramsey was asked if he’d like to write the script for a movie pitched by For King & Country’s Joel Smallbone, and when he looked into it, he liked what he saw. “It was a compelling, inspiring, dramatic story,” he recalled. “It had the beats and set pieces of a good movie.”
He recognized the latter when reading about the moment when the story’s father David Smallbone, devastated by news that he’s been financially ruined, goes home — and walks into a party for his 44th birthday. “That’s gold,” Ramsey laughed.
The co-writing offer expanded into a co-directing offer with Joel Smallbone.
Ramsey started writing the script in September 2020 with filming starting two years later, the bulk of it compressed in a five-week shoot from mid-October to mid-November.
Ramsey found the material aligned with his Christian faith and worked to walk the line “between being clear and a bit on-the-nose, and being subtle, but not being vague,” he said. Where Christian-themed films of a generation ago might have been predictably scrubbed of conflict and with a guaranteed uplifting finale, those films today aim for more realism and relatability, and are better for it, Ramsey said.
The central family in “Unsung Hero,” the writer and director noted, “go through a valley, for sure,” with the mother a steady inspiration who rallies the family as their faith is eventually rewarded.
Ramsey found himself drawing on lessons learned under McLennan Theatre director Jim Rambo, who directed the young MCC student in productions such as “Biloxi Blues,” “Amadeus” and “The Elephant Man.” “In many ways, Jim Rambo has been my Yoda,” he laughed, referring to the wise “Star Wars” character.
Ramsey’s experience as a father of five also came in handy in directing a story about the Smallbone family and their seven kids. Fatherhood provided the experience needed to wrangle a handful of kid actors as well as informed the script, such as where the Smallbone parents are having an increasingly serious conversation that’s frequently punctuated by kid interruptions.
Ramsey’s first feature film, 2014’s “The Song,” won him a Dove Award nomination and his comic short films with his brother John have won the two national attention and film festival play. As one would expect for a director, he’s working on a script even as “Unsung Hero” works its way through American theaters.
He’s more vague than subtle on what it’s about other than it’s a sci-fi story with a faith thread. “Some people say there’s a fine line between science and the supernatural,” he hinted.