Billy: The Early Years is a biography picture of the patronizing saint variety. Primarily concerned with sanctifying its subject – in this case the evangelist Billy Graham – Billy simplifies things to such a degree that it treats its audience like little kids. It’s a great movie, if all you demand of it is a vague assurance that Billy Graham was a wonderful man. Left unanswered are a series of important questions. What was the nature of his particular faith? What made him so electrifying as an evangelist? A final, effective preaching scene hints at this, mainly because it’s one of the few in which Armie Hammer, as Graham, is allowed to do anything more than deliver a Forrest Gump smile.
