Darrin Hill (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is an up-and-coming ad executive hoping that a
malt liquor campaign targeted at African-Americans will be his ticket to
success, and his chance to crawl out from under crippling debt. When his aunt
dies, Darrin is summoned to the small town in Georgia where he grew up to hear
the reading of the will. The aunt leaves the local church choir to Darrin, along
with a chance at a cash prize of $150,000 from a national choir competition. Due
to the unpleasantness of the former choir director, Darrin is forced to start
from scratch, hoping to entice a local church outcast with a set of golden pipes
(singer Beyonce Knowles from Destiny's Child) to lead the choir to victory.
"The Fighting Temptations" (IMDb listing) returns audiences to the theater of the southern
Baptist church. A church where the Holy Spirit resides in, and frequently takes
a ride in, parishioners by inspiring them to dance, or to stand up and shout
"Amen!" Admittedly, this is great fun to watch. Such an outpouring of love and
faith is rare to find on the silver screen, and "Temptations" has a large streak
of respect for the church, if only for its undeniable energy. That being said,
why does "Temptations" bother with such an excruciatingly routine script?
The screenplay for "Temptations" is a simple by-the-numbers story based around
the musical numbers that audiences have come to see. I can see a certain logic
in keeping things easy so as not to interfere with the main course of the film:
the singing. But the "Temptations" script is the pits, displaying such clumsy
screenplay construction and hackneyed ideas that it's a wonder why the film
bothers at all. One could've easily abandoned the story and focused on the
performances, and the film would've come out fine, or at the very least more
pleasant than it is now. However, those decisions were not made, and the
audience is left with a crushingly dull story about "self-discovery" and
"accepting your roots".
It doesn't help the quality argument to have a 60-year-old Englishman with an
uneasy comedic filmography ("The Whole Nine Yards," "Greedy") direct this
unquestionably southern tale. Jonathan Lynn doesn't quite have the chops to make
"Temptations" a complete film, instead grabbing at parts to make his whole. He's
been down this southern road before, with the 1992 fish-out-of-water hit, "My
Cousin Vinny," but that film was far broader with its gags, whereas
"Temptations" wants to eventually touch the heart. Lynn is aided by the power of
the church scenes and with the occasional, often oddball, musical number, but he
fails to make the production connect into one consistent movie. This film is
meant to be one of those gigantic audience-pleasing musical/comedies, like its
dangerously close sibling, the Whoopi Goldberg comedy, "Sister Act." But must it
be completely devoid of integrity to succeed? I just don't see the logic in
lowballing the intelligence factor, then trying to cover it up with flashy song
and dance numbers. It's worked before, sadly enough, and here's to hoping it
stops with "Temptations."
Tearing up the summer charts this year with her solo work in music, Beyonce
Knowles makes her long awaited motion picture follow-up to last summer's hit,
"Austin Powers in Goldmember." Without the aid of Mike Myers and his writing,
Knowles shows in "Temptations" that she may not have the chops as an actress
just yet. Far more confident as part of the choir (of course!), Knowles doesn't
sell her character's backstory hard enough, and is eventually forced into a
romantic entanglement with Cuba Gooding that isn't the least bit welcomed.
Comedians Mike Epps and Steve Harvey manage to push a little fun into the
proceedings with their supporting roles. At least they can turn a joke or two,
unlike poor Cuba Gooding, who is all bug-eyed reactions and sweat, continuing
his quest for quickest Oscar-winner-to-Vegas-lounge-act curve I've seen in
recent memory.
"Temptations" does come with an unusually high music pedigree, with appearances
by The O'Jays, Faith Evans, Montell Jordan, Angie Stone, and the aforementioned
Beyonce Knowles. As you can see, the picture has no problems with musicianship.
"The Fighting Temptations" throws away the promise of gospel joy with a movie
that should've stayed in the development process a while longer, so that this
tale of spirit could match the joy of its song.
Filmfodder Grade: D