A review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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In Jonathan Lynn’s comedy The Fighting Temptations, a movie resonating with sensational gospel music, a prodigal son returns to his small town church from the big city and falls for the local nightclub singer. He also gets into a whole mess of trouble, and has to work fast to pry himself free. If he does not escape, he might have to give up his materialistic, egocentric life and be absorbed by the church that wants him back.
Sounds like a very unusual film. Sounds like a story that just might glorify the church and what God can do within it.
Unfortunately, the film ends up making a mockery of the church. Sure, God’s followers behave like idiots all of the time. But that doesn’t mean that what they aspire to be, and what they believe in, is worth laughing at.
Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Darrin, a successful advertising executive who lied his way to the top, and who quickly plunges back down when his lies are exposed. Fortunately, he discovers he has inherited a good deal of money from his late Aunt Sally. That is, he’ll receive the cash if he goes back to Montecarlo, Georgia, and lead the Beulah Baptist Church’s choir all the way to the grand prize of the Gospel Explosion choir competition.
Within minutes of his homecoming, Darrin is smitten with Lilly, the local beauty (pop singer Beyoncé Knowles), and begins lying his way toward winning her heart. But before long, his life has become complicated. His attempts to train the choir are disrupted by a tyrannical church legalist named Paulina (LaTanya Richardson), the pastor’s sister, who wants to control the choir herself, and who insists that Lilly keep her secular-music-singing vocal chords far away from the house of God. As the police pick up Darrin’s criminal trail, he grapples with the moralist and hurries his makeshift choir toward the big competition, hoping he comes out of it with Lily on his arm.
The movie is bound to win rave reviews for fantastic gospel music performances. The impressive musical guest stars include Montell Jordan, Angie Stone, Shirley Caesar, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Faith Evans, the O’Jays, Melba Moore, and rapper T-Bone. That sanctuary looks likely to explode when the choir gets rocking, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. seems to be re-enacting his hyperactive Oscar acceptance speech as he leaps, cavorts, and breakdances his way across the platform directing them.
And on the DVD (now available for rental), these musical sequences are extended, beefing up the only part of the movie worth noticing.
But the storyline is sharply dissonant with the messages of the songs. You might think this prodigal would learn to take responsibility for his lies. You might think he would humbly accept the consequences of his crimes and change.
You might also expect Lilly, a single mom, to see the error of her ways as she works as a sultry seductress at the local tavern. Surely her vocation is not going to give her son a good idea of the way that mature men and women behave.
The church’s pastor might also learn to exhibit some real spiritual leadership instead of seesawing between cowardice and loud public humiliations of his sinful churchgoers. He might also reconsider his cooperation in baptizing criminals who do not understand what they’re doing. Further, he might teach his choir to perform their music for God’s glory instead of for worldly honors.
None of these things come about. In fact, the film’s loudest message is that we should not only stop judging wrongdoers, but we should accept and even embrace all manner of sinners and ignore their misbehavior.
The person who is most severely punished by the film is the pompous and judgmental church legalist, Paulina. She may be arrogant. She may be a liar herself. But she is also the only person in the movie who seems to care at all about teaching the churchgoers right from wrong. Indeed, the only “gospel” in this film is in the music. The filmmakers seem oblivious to the lyrics of their own soundtrack.
The message seems to be that if you come into a church that doesn’t waste time with ethics, and if you join the choir and have a fun time, you’ll be saved. Sounds like the sermon of somebody who wants all the easy benefits of church without having to grow up or bear any responsibility. It also sounds like the sermon of a preacher who has no interest in what God has to say about anything. In this church, repentance is of apparently no concern.
Funny, then, that Relevant Magazine (a Christian magazine about arts and culture) would give this magazine a cover story and piles of praise. Funny that Chris Monroe of the Web site Christian Spotlight says that if you see the film “you will be encouraged, exhorted, uplifted and, of course, edified when it is over.”
No, the magazine that gets it right is the mainstream publication Slant, where Ed Gonzalez calls the movie “TV-grade material”, and observes that the real lesson learned by Darrin is “the meaning of trust and snagging ‘Southern booty.’” He concludes, “Too bad the film is never as soulful as the songs the character’s sing.”
Amen, brother.