Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.: Using the story of a pastor (Sterling K. Brown) and his wife (Regina Hall) re-opening their megachurch after sexual misconduct allegations against the pastor caused their congregation to shut down for a year, writer/director Adamma Ebo takes aim at the culture of Christian megachurches (in this case Southern Baptists) in the mockumentary-style dramedy Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. Ebo balances the absurd with the tragic as she explores how these institutions run by phony grifters who care more about material items, flashy theatrics and projecting an aura of unattainable perfection than preaching the faith they claim to follow so closely are inherently toxic and the stellar performances from Hall and Brown tap into the level of pain, delusion and loneliness that exist underneath the confident, smiling exteriors of this couple that is struggling to accept that their time in the spotlight is over. Honk for Jesus. may not be the most nuanced piece of satire Hollywood has ever churned out, but it's still a very effective and compelling film that announces Ebo as a filmmaker to watch and reminds the world that its leads (especially the perpetually underrated Hall) are among the most versatile, effortlessly commanding actors working today.
Grade: B+
Barbarian: It's funny to think that The Whitest Kids U Know co-creator/star Zach Cregger's big reemergence into the creative arts has come in the form of a gnarly horror movie he wrote and directed. What's next: Danny Tamberelli resurfaces to make a movie about a man who resorts to a life of crime after losing his life savings betting on the Jets to win the Super Bowl?
Barbarian has what appears to be a simple hook: A woman (Georgina Campbell) arrives at an AirBnb she booked and is surprised to discover that there's a man (Bill Skarsgard) already staying there. After confirming that the AirBnb was indeed double booked and failing to find another place to stay, she reluctantly decides to spend the night. Before too long, she discovers that there is far more fear in this house than a stranger sleeping in the next room over.
The twisted, wild and often darkly comedic directions Barbarian goes in from there are pretty staggering to behold and couldn't be predicted by even the most astute viewer of the trailer or opening stretch of the film. Cregger's relative inexperience as a director causes him to lose the reigns of this chaotic macabre funhouse of a movie at times (particularly in the unwieldy final act that hurls about 600 additional curveballs at the viewer before ending on a surprisingly basic note), but the man has a brazen fearlessness, playful giddiness and knack for tension-building behind the camera that can't be denied. With some fine-tuning of the storytelling that lies underneath all of the shocking, repulsive twists of this film, Cregger could become one of the best horror directors on the planet.
Grade: B
End of the Road: End of the Road is a throwback to the days when Hollywood would use the dead weekends on the release calendar (ex: mid-January, Labor Day weekend, weekend after Thanksgiving) to trot out a below average genre movie with a low-ish budget to tide audiences over before the more respectable, large-scale releases were released in the following weeks. This family melodrama meets kidnapping crime thriller has enough respectable veteran actors (Queen Latifah, Ludacris, Beau Bridges) in key roles and aesthetically-pleasing shots to provide the film with the degree of legitimacy it needs to be elevated above the flood of VOD titles that cover similar territory, but its clumsy tonal shifts from sappy to gritty to silly, predictable idiotic plot twists and stagnant direction from TV vet Millicent Shelton bring enough ineptitude to the table to ensure that the movie never quite gets off the ground. Deon Taylor has a whole filmography full of movies like End of the Road that are way more entertaining and competently made and I encourage anybody to watch any of those films instead of this thoroughly forgettable affair.
Grade: C-
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