| “ | (Evan Baxter: You are destroying our national parks for profit!) You have a problem with somebody taking a little profit? It's called business, son. So, if I need to get a message out there or get a congressman elected, there are people who pay for it, and yes, those people want this bill to happen. And by God, it's gonna happen. Now, you look down there. (gestures to the police below) Those are the wolves, son. I'm gonna give you one last chance. Take down this boat. (Evan Baxter: I'm giving you one last chance. Repent.) Such a shame. You had possibilities. But if you wanna stop progress to save the Earth, go for it. Good luck getting a tree to come with the polls. | „ |
| ~ Long revealing his true colors to Evan and threatening him to take the ark down. |
Chuck Long is the main antagonist of the 2007 religious comedy film Evan Almighty. Long is a pompous congressman who gets his money from an illegal integration bill. When Evan's strange Noah like events get in the way, Long is determined to do whatever it takes to put him into place and out of his corrupt plans.
He was portrayed by John Goodman, who also played Ocious P. Potter, Big Dan Teague, Layton T. Montgomery, Bones Darley, Marshall, Howard Stambler.
Biography
Long is a very prominent Virginia congressman and developer of the Citizens' Integration of Public Lands Act (CINPLAN) bil (CINPLAN) bill, which he aquired by illegal means. He is shown to be an evil and corrupt businessman that will do anything to make a profit, including destroying the environment, putting people's lives at risk through allowing substandard construction projects, and ruining Evan Baxter's life for potentially getting in the way of his plans.
He regularly took kickbacks from various corporations to sponsor bills that would profit them in various ways such as granting them land- use contracts, with the corporations' freedoms then often leading them to cut corners on their work and greatly damage local ecosystems. Long dismissed all of this as "Just business."
This corruption and profiteering ended up causing a major flood, as Long arranged for a company that supported him to get a sweet contract to build a dam (And allowed other companies to raze the land surrounding the dam and build houses and businesses on it), and the company then built it using substandard materials, violating building codes and cutting corners left and right in order to save money. Long was well aware of all this, but believed the company's people when they assured him that the dam would never break, and figured that was good enough for him.
The dam ultimately does break, flooding a small town, though its residents are saved from drowning by boarding Evan's ark (This turns out to be the main reason why God told Evan to build the ark, to save the lives of everyone in town when the dam broke). The ark eventually comes to a halt right in front of the congress building, and Evan publicly reveals Long's crooked involvement in the dam project.
In the end of the movie, we learn that a proposed bill Long had been supporting which would enable developers to gain access to lands that were a part of national parks (A continuation of Long's policy of secretly turning a profit from letting companies damage pristine ecosystems) has been suspended after the exposure of Long's corrupt practices, and Long himself will be facing an indictment for his corrupt and self-serving abuses of power, indicating he will almost certainly be stripped of his position and imprisoned.
Trivia
- Evan Almighty and Bee Movie, both of which John Goodman starred in, came out in 2007.
