Directed By Adamma Ebo

Starring – Regina Hall, Sterling K. Brown, Nicole Beharie

The Plot – A satirical mockumentary style comedy starring Hall as Trinitie Childs, the proud first lady of a Southern Baptist megachurch, who together with her husband Pastor Lee-Curtis Childs (Brown), once served a congregation in the tens of thousands. But after a scandal forces their church to temporarily close, Trinitie and Lee-Curtis must reopen their church and rebuild their congregation to make the biggest comeback that commodified religion has ever seen.

Rated R for adult language and some sexual situations

Honk For Jesus | Official Trailer | Peacock Original – YouTube

POSITIVES

Adamma Ebo’s debut feature length effort isn’t based on a true story, but it does elicit more than a few revealing commentaries about the state of religion, with the kind of insight that can only be found in a documentary. For starters, it’s a conversation piece about the ideas of forgiveness and starting over. This is not only for the duo of protagonists at the forefront of the narrative, but also in those they shunned with their initial deceit that broke the trust of a community. Ebo zeroes in on the greed and the spectacle of a Southern Baptist church, bringing with it many hilariously channeled depictions and lunacy when taken aback and forced to view it from a third-party perspective in depiction. For such, Ebo equally capitalizes on the gimmick of her presentation with an evolving aspect ratio in and out of the documentary within her movie, as well as grainy textures for flashback sequences that more than trigger familiarity with the weathered quality of VHS technology. This not only is transferred seamlessly and repetitively between what’s transpiring on camera and off, but also in ways that are thoroughly established enough within the movements of the camera, between the still frame sedation of real-life biding for time against the handheld navigating of the documentary prescribing a third person perspective inside of this now cold and isolating congregation. The humor is mostly effective, with two comedic powerhouses elevating the magnitude of their various deliveries, all the while cementing a superior first half of the film that hooks you immediately to their plights, regardless of your own religious stature. On the subject of those two meaningful leads, the impeccable chemistry between Brown and Hall transcribes a lived-in realism to the dynamic of their crumbling marriage, with atmospheric tension and internal disconnect being conjured with meticulous nuance being distributed in the air of their impactful turns. Brown is an electric sideshow, combining a fiery registry, three-dimensional versatility in luxurious wardrobes, and unabashed ignorance in outlining a pastor who truly feels larger than life, all the while Hall steals the show with an artificial smile for appearances that subdues the internal anguish that is building the longer, she’s asked to endure this loveless charade. For what feels like the first time in her career, Regina is given the meat of the material, with a riveting third act diatribe that not only left me captivated while frozen in my seat, but also establishes her as a dramatic force in her own right, leaving the door of possibilities ajar for what I’m hoping will be a career defining turn.

NEGATIVES

In being conceived from a short film of the same name, the script does occasionally feel a bit stretched out and even tonally hollow during arcs requiring more fleshing out to evolve with meaning. This is especially the case with the backstory of the characters or the introductory period of the film, which kind of oversteps the meaningful necessities of the Childs backstories, and instead focuses entirely on who they are post-controversy. While that aspect is the single most important of the film, for my money understanding who these two were before the fictional documentary took shape is bigger in understanding the magnitude of the internal and external stakes of everything that they lost versus everything hanging in the balance, in turn conveying a bigger problem within a screenplay that may feel jaded by the many subplots it includes, yet rarely follows through on, and leading to an anticlimactic ending that just sort of runs out of time. In addition to this, the tonal evolution for the film is a bit sloppy and undercooked between a first half that was overzealously hilarious and a second half feeling as dramatically stimulating as any Oscar nominee can conjure. If both of these sides work cohesively, they can elicit an experience that feels uniquely vital to the integrity of the film, but on their own they’re just two sharp contrasts that never submerge cohesively into the benefit of the same movie, instead feeling like sacrificial opponents on a stage that could’ve appreciated them further as partners. Finally, while most of the production seamlessly stitches together an immersive quality to the engagement, the components of audio remained a bit stagnant between the many expressive depictions of captivity that visually stimulated. Even in the grainy vintage footage of the Childs in their younger days, the audio is a bit too polished and clear-cut for believability, jarring the realism of a VHS camcorder in the back of a room, with no evidential microphones on or around the couple focused on in depiction.

OVERALL
“Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul” isn’t wholeheartedly inspiring, but it does prescribe a two-for-one special of thunderous performances between Hall and Brown that answer our prayers with impeccable chemistry. While the film does offer laughs inside of its mockumentary captivity, the lasting impressions surmise from a fearless depiction that isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty with religion, in turn leading to the rare comedy that is all the more hilarious from the ounces of truth it places fearlessly into the engagement.

My Grade: 7/10 or B