Gerard Butler In MACHINE GUN PREACHER Trailer

The poster for Marc Forster's Toronto International Film Festival selected Machine Gun Preacher pretty much says it all, and it's leaving me torn as a result.

On the one hand this is very clearly an African story from a colonial perspective with the noble white man coming in to save little children from violence. It also does not seem to recognize the basic ridiculousness of putting a tag line like "Hope Is The Greatest Weapon Of All" across the chest of a man holding a machine gun. If ever an ad campaign said 'one sided' and 'shamelessly manipulative' this poster does that.

But on the other hand, this is actually a true story handled by a reasonably good director who appears to have drawn a strong performance out of the generally under-rated Gerard Butler. So what to do?

When ex-biker-gang member Sam Childers (Butler) makes the life-changing decision to go to East Africa to help repair homes destroyed by civil war, he is outraged by the unspeakable horrors faced by the region's vulnerable populace, especially the children. Ignoring the warnings of more experienced aide workers, Sam breaks ground for an orphanage where it's most needed--in the middle of territory controlled by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a renegade militia that forces youngsters to become soldiers before they even reach their teens. But for Sam, it is not enough to shelter the LRA's intended victims. Determined to save as many as possible, he leads armed missions deep into enemy territory to retrieve kidnapped children, restoring peace to their lives--and eventually his own. The explosive, real-life tale of a man who has rescued over a thousand orphans from starvation, disease and enslavement, Machine Gun Preacher also stars Michelle Monaghan (Due Date), Kathy Baker (Cold Mountain), Madeline Carroll (Mr. Popper's Penguins), Academy Award(R) nominated Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) and Souleymane Sy Savane ("Damages").

The fact that there's only one black actor considered worth crediting in a story set in Sudan baffles, confuses and angers me, frankly. But even if told from a relentlessly white perspective this does seem to be a story well worth telling and Forster seems to have done a decent job with what he was given.

Apple have just premiered the trailer. Take a look and weigh in below.