A film that's easy to mock - Pat Boone as an earnest preacher inserting himself between warring gang members going "Jesus loves you". He plays a character who is determined to save souls while his wife is home about to have a baby and there's some unexpectedly camp scenes where he tries to force himself into Erik Estrada's bedroom at 3 am when Estrada is just wearing white underpants.
It was co written and directed by Don Murray, the actor, and some of the acting is pretty good. Boone saves three main souls - a young female street kid who tries to rob him, a female heroin addict, and the leader of a Hispanic gang (Erik Estrada in his debut).
The heroin addict gets over it after one night of withdrawals - it's a female who prompts her to do this, not Boone (why not give him the hero moment?)... then the next day she's all cured, wearing a nice smart suit and singing in Church. Hallelujah!
It's not terribly convincing when all the gang members got religion at the end and grasped for bibles - I think the film would have been better off just focusing on the three who were saved.
But it does work dramatically... in part because the depiction of modern day life is full on: gangs, heroin, prostitution, crime, etc
I just wish they hadn't had Boone basically ignore his wife who is about to give birth! His performance is fine - I really liked it at the end that he cried when Estrada gave himself to God, more emotive acting like this from him through his career would've been good.
It is shot and scored like a TV show from 1970. The young actors all commit. It's not a bad film and of course if you're very religious you'll get stuff out of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment