After the success of The Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Hollywood saw the dollar signs and we now have The Gospel.
For a movie produced and directed by the people who gave us the direct-to-video Trois, The Gospel is decent.
Mind you, I said decent, with lots of soul-stirring gospel music.
Whether this is a particularly well-made movie is another question, and the people I saw the movie with yesterday weren't impressed.
Boris Kodjoe, well-known for his role in Soul Food, plays David Taylor, a PK (preacher's kid, for those who don't know) who leaves the church after his mother's death and becomes a PG-rated version of R. Kelly. His father's illness brings him back home where he predictably becomes reconnected to his church. Idris Elba plays Charles Frank (though people keep calling him Frank), who has a wife who won't sleep with him and is posed to take over the church.
Taylor and Frank butt heads over the church's direction, and Taylor falls in love with a single mother played by cute American Idol loser Tamyra Gray, who many agreed did not look that cute in this movie.
Nona Gaye, Marvin Gaye's fine daughter, plays Frank's wife. She has one nice scene but for the most part she's a one-note player in this film. And the reason she won't sleep with her husband -- she can't have a baby -- just doesn't hold much holy water here.
The holes here are pretty big but they weren't big enough for me not to be entertained.
Omar Gooding, Cuba Gooding's younger brother, plays Taylor's manager and Gooding, by far, has the funniest lines. And seeing gospel artists such as Yolanda Adams and Fred Hammond was a special treat.
Still, one has to wonder about Hollywood. If the studios think folks are going to see any ole Christian movie, they're wrong.
Just slapping Gospel on the title of a movie doesn't make that movie immune from being crappy.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The purpose of Pop The Culture is to dish about and dissect pop culture in all its myriad forms.
1 comment:
I saw The Gospel, and I liked it, but I didn't love it. I hoped for more, even though I was truly drawn by curiosity...and Boris Kodjoe. I wondered what he would do with this movie, after claiming no personal relationship with Christ and declaring that it was really his wife who talked him into the project. He appeared awkward as the sexy R&B artist, and perhaps that was because his character was out of his true element. The storyline between Frank and his wife could have been better explained. It was so vague that it could have been left out, and we would never have missed it. Even so, I enjoyed Tamyra Gray and Fred Hammond, Hezekiah Walker, Martha Munizzi, and other singers. And strangely, Donnie McClurkin didn't really sing, but I enjoyed his performance as his pastoral role took precedence.
Post a Comment