This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
When you return it's the same old place.
Plot Overview
Astronaut Bobby Paradise
(David Strathairn) experienced equipment meltdown before a
tumultuous splashdown in the Indian Ocean. He heard a
disembodied voice and trailed fiery debris. His wife Elizabeth
(Barbara Hershey) convinced him it was God, and he's sold that idea
to an adulating public. He still converses with an imaginary
"Marlboro man" (James Gammon) next to a campfire in the
desert, and he visits his doppelgänger in a space capsule
at the bottom of his swimming pool.
The cowboy was partial to double thick
Oreos™, and Rev. Paradise's stadium crusade is
packed to the gills with honkeys who can't pull off jive the way
black folk might. A colored choir covers for him. His brother media
star Rev. Leland passed away
leaving Sammi (Anita Barone) his hot widow to carry the
torch—there was a large age difference between them—who
being a former porn star does quite well with a religious
pornographic service slightly ajar from good taste.
The family
of Rev. Paradise—he pulls down
$18 million a year—is very supportive. His wife anchors
him when he's “drifting.” His longsuffering
mother-in-law Isabella (Elaine Strich) is a perennial cynic with a
ready comment. His daughter Grace (Kiersten Warren) is a
slut “I'm a whore” who slept her way
to the top of her Stanford law class and is now Bobby Paradise
Ministries' general counsel. His older son Matthew (James LeGros)
is their business manager cum fixer. His younger son Luke is the
family's black sheep, being incarcerated for murder (“It was
self-defense.”)
Ideology
It's wonderful meeting the almighty off-world but now
he has to deal with planetary corporeality where the rubber
meets the road. Think in terms of, (Prov. 30:21-23) “For three
things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear:
For a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with
meat; For an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid
that is heir to her mistress.”
President Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation to the newly liberated slaves had
“recommend[ed] … that, in all cases when allowed
they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.” That
would not have overly exalted them. The Bible gives us “a
servant when he reigneth,” which is said to unbearably
disquiet the earth. Here we have a “bleeding heart, divorced
Democrat,” extra-black Senator Michael Linney (Richard T.
Jones,) with aspirations for the White House. His dark features are
lost to the camera accommodating first the white marble
background surrounding him as he walks & talks and then
the sunny window behind him as he conducts a hearing. He's
examining a media merger—routine at this level—where
the watchword is openness and transparency, but it
is impossible for us to read his facial features lost on a black
mug set against a bright surrounding. Regardless of MLK's enjoinder not to judge one by
his skin color but by his character, here's a case where it doesn't work
well for hidden dimensions, to the disquieting of the body politic.
Luke is portrayed as a fool for his
mortal altercation, getting caught, ending up in the hoosegow,
and being “living proof that God could give a flying
f_ck.” He gets released early for good behavior and crashes
a media event covered by an itchy press. He'll be perceived as
coming to partake of the family teat, although, no, he wants to
find work like a good ex-con. To the public, though, he'll be
“a fool when he is filled with meat.” A medical
emergency arises calling for a doctor, but it's too late. The
reverend's prayers were also ineffectual. But when Luke puts his
hand on the guy, he revives. People would write big checks to a
ministry with its own doctors aboard its planes transporting
the ill to its own hospital. Likewise, they'd empty their
wallets for a minister with a bona fide healing ministry. But for
an ex-con with a magic touch? Forget it.
Pragmatic Matthew has an idealistic wife who carries her praying crusades to an otherwise quiet chapel where she argues with her hapless husband who has enough on his mind as is. As a single girl she would have simply prayed in her closet to her heart's content, but as a nagging wife she disquiets the whole place.
Lastly, we come to “an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.” Prize fighter Manny Marquez (Kirk Acevedo) wants to marry “I'm a whore” Gracie, but there are complications. Elizabeth pegs the guy as “a little too brown.” Bobby rejoins, “Elizabeth, the whole world is brown.” She replies, “It's not them I'm worried about. It's the kids that'll find the world is not kind.” Then there's the matter of Manny's Mexican mate who's Catholic and won't go along with an annulment. “She got pregnant and had my kid,” Manny says. “I married her so my little girl could have a father. We got nothing together except Gabriella.” But that's hardly nothing. Take novelist Peter Blauner:
Paco … never thought of himself as dark-skinned in the first place. His family were aristocrats from Cuba. It was just a quirk of history that they'd lost the plantation in Havana after La Revolucíon and had to go to San Juan for a few years. He'd never bought into this tocarle a uno suerte, crushed-under-the-wagon-wheel-of-destiny sorry-ass bullsh!t. Sucede lo que sucede. A man took his future in his own hands and shaped it every day because otherwise, what made him a man? (307)
He could man up, be a real husband & father. And if he had a whore on the side, why, he'd fit right in to this family. Any brown bambinos would be kept under wraps anyway. But his Mexican Señora can be bought off if the price is right. Then Gracie would be his main squeeze while their chocolate colored munchkins would likely dampen contributions more than the other.
Production Values
“” (TV Movie 2004) was directed by Frank Pierson. Its screenplay was written by Norman Steinberg and Richard Christian Matheson. It stars David Strathairn, Barbara Hershey and Kirk Acevedo. All the actors quit themselves well; it's a shame this pilot didn't get picked up.
MPA rated it R for language, some sexual content and brief drug use. The boxing match was shot well: blurring the images to convey the action while making it less graphic. Runtime is 1 hour 33 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
The name of Jesus was oft mentioned but no scriptures were quoted. This is not the typical Christian ministry movie as everybody is too quirky. The main man's family all had Bible names—Matthew, Luke & Grace—but less than can be desired in holiness. It started with a reverse rapture and ended with an inside-out prodigal son. One could answer his interlocutors honestly what the movie he's watching is about, without revealing his depraved tastes.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Well done action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Better than watching TV. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Blauner, Peter. The Last Good Day. Copyright © 2003 by Peter Blauner Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2003. First Edition. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org