The Gospel film review

Year: 2005

The Gospel is about a man (Boris Kodjoe); a secular music star that returns to his father’s church after his father falls ill.

Now before I begin my critique, can anyone tell me if I’ll go to Hell for giving a religious film a bad review?

Damn. Ok, well, I better not be wearing gasoline drawers anytime soon then.

The film seemed rushed; the scenes underdeveloped and the characters not worth investing any emotion in. I couldn’t get into any of them because I had nothing really to go on as far as backstory besides the bad relationship between Boris and his father, played by Clifton Powell.

These were some of the things I needed to know:

-Why and what was Boris’ former best friend (Charles Frank) mad at him 15 years later after they last saw one another?

-Why was Charles so overly ambitious and somewhat cutthroat to be ‘The Man’?

Why didn’t Boris seem bothered or in conflict with himself by returning to the church while in the midst of a successful secular career? Where was the struggle within him to decide to return or lose his secular fan base?

Other issues:

Nona Gaye’s struggle between her loyalty for her cousin (Boris) and her husband (Charles) was so confusing, because one minute she would defend Boris to the hilt and the next she’d defend Charles with the exact same verve’.

Tamyra Gray plays one of the members of the choir in which Boris is now a part of again and he has a romantic interest in her. She’s “re-saving” (?) herself for marriage, so she’s pretty adamant about pre-marital sex. At first, she disses him for being caught between the two worlds but THEN she damn near gives him a throat exam with her tongue at the end of their FIRST date. Now, I’m cool with the closet freak and all but don’t try and make her out to be Miss Prissy/Undercover Freak but NOT make it a part of the storyline/film.

As you can tell I had a lot of issues with this flick. The Gospel had good intentions, just bad execution. One positive note: Boris’ lip-synching was pretty damn good. It looked as if he was really singing. Other than that, the movie really didn’t move me.

Forgive me, God. We’re still cool, right? (Big cheesy smile)

Review © 2005 Charles Kenneth Maye for FilmFetish.com