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dartanian32
Reviews
The Gospel (2005)
The Gospel is Embarrassingly Embarrassing
After watching the movie, I still wasn't too sure of the storyline and the point of the movie. I've heard now that it was a modern day version of the bible story, "The Prodigal Son". It was? Then it must have been a very very extremely extremely very very loose loose version of it because this movie was HORRIBLE! The biblical story that I know has a rich father with two sons, one of which leaves home, goes out into the world to make it on his own, finds out that life is pretty rough and comes back home down trodden into the welcoming arms of his father. The other son, the good son, stays at home and is angry when his father gives the "bad" son riches on his return, not understanding why the bad son is getting all the attention when the good son has been the apple of his fathers eye. Its all about love, forgiveness, taking the sheep back into the fold type of thing. Believe me when I say that that storyline does NOT play out in THE GOSPEL.
Boris Kodjo's character as the "lost" son is not built up in this movie, actually when i think about it, none of the characters truly develop so the audience cannot really get a connection with the characters and empathize with the things that happen in their lives. As for Boris, he is as good looking as he can't act; has hair in this movie (as opposed to his bald head) which looks like a wig (maybe it is) and can't act. He does NOT bring to life the whole story of the lost son who has gone out in the world and returns home. The funny thing is, he is one of the main stars of this movie. Why did they do that to him. To us? The "other" son, Idris Elba somewhat saved the movie with his performance and the portrayal of his character but overall the plot was quite thin and I asked myself many times throughout the film "What exactly is this movie about?" I think this movie was about the producers getting as many gospel artists, gospel songs and celebrities into this film as they could with "notable appearances" such as Tom Joyner, Donnie McClurkin,Myra J, Fred Hammond and Hezekiah Walker and a few others. But I will give major props to the music and especially to Yolanda Adams who's performance of her song "Victory" allowed this movie to get my rating vote of 2.
There really isn't much more to say about THE GOSPEL except that it is "notably forgettable". Oh, I forgot to mention that Boris can't act.
Flightplan (2005)
See this one when it comes on TV.
Foster usually has substantive films, but this film was very predictable and disappointingly anti-climactic. "Help! Help! Who took my daughter?" Well, the film tries to focus on the captain, and the flight attendants and an ever so "obvious" Arabic gentleman..but I'm pretty sure we've seen enough drama films to figure out that the "not so obvious" character is the villain. Then to top it off, the actual reasoning behind the kidnapping just makes you slowly shake you head, and Like "War of the Worlds" leaves you wishing you'd donated your money to ANY unworthy cause. I give credit to Foster in that her acting, as usual, was gripping and believable - a definite hit. But the movie itself? A cool miss!