The Gospel Reviews
I love this movie, it is very INSPIRATIONAL. It will touch your heart. A FOOT-STOMPING, HAND-CLAPPING GOOD TIME.
Faith-based films are difficult. Rarely are they as well made as 'The Mission' or 'The Passion', but they can pack an emotional punch despite their smaller budgets (see also, 'Fireproof' and 'Facing the Giants'). This film tries to do too much. It takes the prodigal son approach to the story, but tries to tie in too many subplots that the audience just gets lost in the mess. Then it tries to cram a bunch of gospel numbers in, but never gives an emotional payoff. Sure, it's really nice to see the likes of Yolanda Adams and Martha Munizzi on screen with actors like Boris Kodjoe (Resident Evil: Afterlife) and Idris Elba (Prometheus), but their presence doesn't have a solid grounding. It's almost as if the producers said, "Let's throw together a generic movie, but have a few well-known gospel singers in the mix." That's essentially what the movie boils down to. There are some good messages about forgiveness and ministry thrown in there for good measure, but it never amounts to anything truly substantive.
The only thing about this movie that is even remotely interesting is the music, and even that is nothing I haven't seen before. This is every other "preacher's kid gone astray" movie that's ever been made with almost zero variations from the formula. I made it through about an hour and 15 minutes, but I just could not do it any more. I was so bored.
This film has some amazing music in it, and a pretty good message. Just not quite put together as well as I would have liked.
There are a lot of good Christian movies out there, but this just isn't one of them. Most people were praising the music, but me, I on the other thought the songs dragged the movie on and didn't really add anything. I did appreciate this films good intentions, but the film is cliche ridden, the acting is wooden, the characters were boring and uninteresting, and the film tries to draw parallels to the Bible story of the Prodigal Son, but it fails to be as engaging. The ending does make the film somewhat better, but not by much. The film is slow and doesn't actually use that slow to build up anything like character development or suspense. What we're left with is a well intended but shaky attempt at Christian cinema.
I love this movie, it is very INSPIRATIONAL. It will touch your heart. A FOOT-STOMPING, HAND-CLAPPING GOOD TIME.
Despite the terrific musical numbers, The Gospel replaces the important themes it could have touched on with dull cliches.
Despite the terrific musical numbers, The Gospel replaces the important themes it could have touched on with dull cliches.
Wow what a movie i loved the message and the story of the film plus what an ensemble cast and cameos but the music of the film was top notch