The greatest Christian movie of all time?
I finally re-watched this after a long time and I when I first saw it I was too young to get it. But now I see that this movie is all about forgiveness in the context of Christianity. The idea that you could forgive people who crucified you and not only forgive, but actually LOVE them. This is what this movie is about and until the very end, our protagonist just can't comprehend such a way of thinking. He asks the nun "HOW COULD YOU FORGIVE THESE MOTHERF******?" Then he receives a vision of Christ in the Church and asks for forgiveness himself. And he knows he's bad, perhaps even irredeemable, so how could he be forgiven? The only way would be to start from himself, so at the end of his life, knowing he's finished, he decides to do one final act of kindness. Perhaps futile, but you know what? There's a small chance those 2 boys built a better life for themselves in another city. In the end though, it doesn't even matter, because to him, it meant that if he could forgive, then maybe he could be forgiven himself.
As for the title, I'm not a Christian myself even though I was raised Catholic and I watched many movies meant to propagate Christianity. But I've never seen one that goes beyond the vague "accept Jebus in yer heart or burn in hell" bullshit and actually dwells deep into the philosophy of Jesus' teachings.