A particularly virulent satire against American churches and their millionaire pastors, this film starring Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown (known for his role as Randall Pearson in “This is us”) strays a bit.
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“Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.” (literally “Honk for Jesus. Save your soul”) opens with Lee-Curtis Childs (Sterling K. Brown) and his wife Trinity (Regina Hall) seated on two thrones.
Lee-Curtis is one of those black pastors, creators of highly lucrative “super churches” that allowed him to become rich. The structure imagined by Adamma Ebo, the screenwriter and director, is that of a documentary on this fictional character, who fell from his pedestal following a sex scandal – a subject that is unfortunately still topical. Interviews, uncensored scenes of life offer to see the Childs in the natural, in all their ridiculousness and their outrageous affirmations.
We go from visiting their wardrobe filled with Prada clothes to statues of Christ, passing through formidable monologues on the religious virtues of capitalism and consumption, which creates an explosive amalgam… especially when we learn that Lee-Curtis’ sex scandals have cost him his followers and their money.
Played perfectly by the tandem formed by Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown, both dazzling, these characters are a satire all the more effective as we feel that Adamma Ebo was greatly inspired by what she saw at Atlanta, Louisiana, having grown up in the Southern Black Baptist Church.
What is stuck in this portrait? The absence of a common thread. The mockumentary, made of daily life and reflections of the couple, ends up losing its interest once we understand the springs.