You just never know about people.  This fact is a major reason why God tells us not to judge people.  In Matthew 7:1-6, Jesus clearly tells us to be careful about how we think of others.  He adds that our own foibles, which he calls the “wooden beam” in our own eyes, makes it nearly impossible to arrive at the correct conclusion about our fellow man.  This came to me while watching Just Before I Go (2014), starring Seann William Scott.  If that name is not familiar to you, then you might know him as Steve Stifler from the American Pie franchise.  If that is the image you have of him as an actor and character, then you might be surprised by Just Before I Go.  He does okay in it, and it is a heavier film than I expected.  The problem is the rest around him.

There are a lot of problems for Ted Morgan (Seann William Scott), the main character in Just Before I Go.  The first one of which we are aware is that he is trying to commit suicide, though that is the end result of everything else we are about to see.  As he floats several feet below a lake’s surface, he starts thinking about that chain of events.  It starts when he is eleven (Tate Berney) and his father (Clancy Brown) passes away.  Ted’s dad is everything to him, and his mourning is interpreted as weakness.  Even his seventh-grade teacher, Mrs. Lawrence (Beth Grant), gives him a hard time when he has trouble answering math questions on the chalk board.  His mother, Nancy Morgan (Connie Stevens), makes things harder by falling in love with a female Elvis impersonator.  This last bit of information, by the way, should speak volumes to the uneven tone of this movie.  High school is no better for Ted (Ryan Hartwig), having to endure constant bullying.  As such, as soon as he is able, he moves as far away as possible, in his case Los Angeles.  Once there, he works for what he refers to as a “minor company,” a chain pet store, eventually working his way up to manager.  There is one silver lining in his life, and that is meeting Penny (Elisha Cuthbert), whom he eventually marries.  However, his difficult childhood has robbed him of passion, as she accuses him of lacking, and she leaves him.  It is at this point that Ted resolves to do what we see in the opening shot.  Before doing so, he feels he must return to his home town to confront everyone who made him who he has become.  Upon getting to Massachusetts, he is greeted by his brother, Lucky Morgan (Garret Dillahunt), who is a police officer in their home town.  Lucky agrees to let Ted stay with his family, though the little brother is not revealing his true intention.  Though Lucky admonishes him to first visit their mother, Ted’s initial move is to go to the nursing home where Mrs. Lawrence is residing.  Ted launches into a diatribe against the feeble teacher, but she only stares back blankly and laughs.  In the middle of the tirade, Mrs. Lawrence’s granddaughter, Greta (Olivia Thirlby), angrily interjects, asking why he would be doing such an awful thing.  He is told that Mrs. Lawrence is dealing with dementia, so he decides to reveal the ultimate plan for his death to Greta.  Instead of being repulsed or reporting him to the authorities, Greta wants to document his final days.  As such, even though he is annoyed by her, she accompanies him on his next task: to confront his high school bully, Rawly Stansfield (Rob Riggle).  Instead of finding broken man doing menial labor and hating life, Rawly is still working for his father, his wife has recently passed away, he has a son with Down’s syndrome, and he regrets the way he treated Ted.  Indeed, they make a plan to go out for drinks and catch up on old times.  Interspersed into the scenes are glimpses of Lucky’s family.  This Catholic will not be getting into the made-up syndrome with which his wife, Kathleen Morgan (Kate Walsh) is dealing.  Of bigger greater import is their older son, Zeke Morgan (Kyle Gallner), who is a closeted homosexual.  He hangs out with the popular boys, so he feels he must keep not only his sexuality hidden, but the fact that he has a lover, Romeo Semple (Evan Ross).  Romeo, incidentally, is the target of the predations by Zeke’s clique.  The only person Zeke feels comfortable coming out to is Ted, who finds some of the young man’s explicit drawings.  Their talk endears Ted to Zeke, as does the night out with Rawly.  Speaking of having a few adult beverages, one of Ted’s stops involves reconnecting with his high school crush, Vickie (Mackenzie Marsh).  Despite her being married, they decide to spend the night with one another, and he treats her with the kind of respect she feels she is missing.  The next day, as her husband’s, Albert (David Arquette), and children’s clothing piles up in their laundry room, she decides to leave and be with Ted.  It is not the only awkward situation into which Ted gets himself.  While hanging out, Rawly convinces Ted to help the former kill his father.  Ted agrees to go along with it, but freezes when the older man goes into cardiac arrest.  There is also the death of Mrs. Lawrence.  Ted attends the wake to comfort Greta, but backs away when she tries to kiss him.  Finally, Lucky is upset with his brother when Ted suggests that Kathleen is awake when she does her insomniac wanderings.  It all comes to a head when Zeke beats up Romeo in front of the former’s friends.  Stealing a car, Zeke is about to jump into the lake and to his death, but he is found by Ted and the others.  When Zeke accidentally falls in, Ted goes after him, as does Lucky.  Ted stays beneath surface, as at the beginning, where he has a moment with his dad . . . and the legendary lake monster.  He is brought to the surface by Lucky, and everyone makes up by the end.

I kind of sped through the last few minutes of Just Before I Go, but I think you have the idea.  The disjointedness I referenced in the previous paragraph comes from moments like when Ted is commiserating with the spirit of his father in one second, and the next he is nose-to-nose with a mythical sea monster.  The last bit is apropos because the creature had been a source of adventure for Ted and his dad, but there are other scenes that, when taken together, do not make a lot of sense.  Had the film picked one tone, it would have made the rest better.  As it is, I will focus on the serious aspects because they make for a better Catholic analysis.  The best place to start is with Rawly.  Ted had built in his mind an idea of his former tormentor as some kind of loser that he is about to fight.  Instead, he gets a kind hearted soul . . . accepting the fact that he wants to kill his father.  Again, it is a mark of how out of whack this movie can be.  The thing is that we can never see the full picture of a person, which includes who we were, are, and will be.  Only God knows these things, and there should be a comfort in this fact.  What I am describing is unknowable, but so many of us twist ourselves around in trying to discover such information, only to be frustrated.  This describes Ted to a degree because before he can end his life, he wants to redeem his past.  As we see, there is no going back, only forward.  God asks that we accept the reality of who we are, and this is what Ted has difficulty doing.  He fears that he is worthless, and convinces himself that this is the case.  As a Catholic, I appreciate some advice told by the spirit of his father.  Dad remarks that fear thrives in emptiness.  This is a true statement.  Without God, we are empty, and that is how fear creeps into our lives.

I am afraid that Just Before I Go is not worth investing any time into watching.  It is not long, which is a blessing, and there are some touching moments.  Those moments come and go just as quickly by the interjection of its off-color, so-called humor.