In spite of tepid reviews from some film critics, "Les Miserables" is booming at the box office, and that financial success can in part be traced to a group of its biggest boosters: Christians, particularly evangelicals whom NBC Universal went after with a microtargeted marketing strategy.

The story in "Les Miserables" is heavy with Christian themes of grace, mercy and redemption. The line everyone seems to remember is "to love another person is to see the face of God."

NBC Universal looked to capitalize on those components and promoted the film to pastors, Christian radio hosts and influence-makers in the Christian community.

The latest film adaptation of the musical is raking in the cash. As of Wednesday, NBC Universal reported, it had pulled in $80.57 million in 2,814 theaters. After winning Christmas Day, the film finished third in the box office totals over the weekend, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, narrowly losing out to "The Hobbit" and "Django Unchained" despite being on significantly fewer screens.

"If you're a Christian and you're seeing this film, you can't help but see these themes," said Jonathan Bock, founder and president of Grace Hill Media, the firm hired for the targeted marketing campaign.

"We were targeting specifically people who had a bully pulpit," Bock said. His company's goal was to draw Christians who would "be impacted by it and then tell anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of people what they just saw."

Screenings set up across the country in advance of the film's release filled up fast, he said.

Bock's firm has worked on marketing campaigns in the faith community for hundreds of television and film releases, and normally, the screening invite-to-attendee ratio is 4-to-1. "This movie, we booked at 1.4-to-1, and we had turn-aways in every single market. Almost everyone who signed up showed up for the movie," he said.

"There's a great deal of awareness about the movie itself, and the great thing is that the movie itself delivers," added Bock, ever the marketer.

Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family was one of the groups that partnered with Grace Hill Media for a special screening. For the event, Focus on the Family brought in partners from across Colorado, adoption agencies, child welfare officials and church leaders.

"We're trying to raise awareness for the needs of kids, particularly in the foster care system who don't have any families. We love to come alongside them and welcome them home, and for that reason, we loved the movie," said Kelly Rosati, vice president of community outreach for Focus on the Family. She oversees their adoption and orphan care initiative.

A movie like "Les Miserables," she said, "is able to engage the heart in a way straight facts and calls to action can never do."

"I think that's something the movie did in a beautiful way: It stirred the heart without ever having to directly issue a call to action," she added.

Another coup for marketers was getting young evangelical leaders like the leaders of Catalyst, the hip conference for young evangelicals, out to see the film. Brad Lomenick, executive director of Catalyst, called it "Epic film. Powerful" on Twitter and suggested that Hugh Jackman's performance was Oscar-worthy.

Mainstream movie critics have not been as glowing. The Los Angeles Times movie critic, Kenneth Turan, wrote in his review, "Because it is so shameless and so popular, 'Les Miserables' and its 'to love another person is to see the face of God' theme are tailor-made for mockery." (Turan did give the movie a favorable review overall.)

Ann Hornaday in her review in the Washington Post said it was "less a fully realized film than a strung-together series of set pieces, showstoppers, diva moments and production numbers."

Lisa Schwarzbaum asked in Entertainment Weekly, "Shall I go on about all the ways in which this fake-opulent 'Les Miz' made me long for guillotines while millions of viewers who have softer, more generous hearts than I may swoon with money's-worth contentment?"

"Christian film critics who view themselves primarily as film critics generally pointed out the same flaws in the movie that everybody else did, which is (director Tom) Hooper's insistence on closeups and going for the easy emotional cues instead of visual storytelling," said Greg Wright, managing editor of HollywoodJesus.com.

That seeming inattention to the artistry of the cinematic endeavor is probably lost on most Christians who have seen the film, Wright said.

"I always felt, looking at the success of the musical, you couldn't explain it any other way than it was resonating with people on a spiritual level, not just on a musical level," Wright said. It carried over in the film too, he said.