Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. (2022)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Pastor of None

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Twin sisters Adamma (writer and director) and Adanne Ebo (producer) make their feature debut with the bold, darkly funny Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul., based on their 2018 short film of the same name. It's that rare thing, an American film that dares to skewer organized religion and the way that hubris and pride can corrupt the healing power of faith. Luis Buñuel surely would have been proud.

Lee-Curtis Childs (Sterling K. Brown) is the successful pastor of the Wander to Greater Paths mega-church in Georgia, with a selection of colorful tailored suits and expensive cars. Unfortunately, due to a scandal, the church was shut down, and most of the congregation flocked to another, nearby church, run by another, younger married couple, Shakura (Nicole Beharie) and Keon Sumpter (Conphidance). So the pastor's wife, first lady Trinitie Childs (Regina Hall) helps her husband for a planned Easter Sunday grand re-opening.

The movie is presented partly as a mockumentary (the aspect ratio is narrower, and the sound and picture are more like video) and real life (a widescreen aspect ratio, with more naturalistic sound and picture), capturing the Childs' in various states of comedic compromise. Lee-Curtis is hilariously deluded, fancying himself a rock star, who is sometimes moved by the spirit to strip off his shirt and reveal his rippling abs to his remaining congregation (all five of them).

Meanwhile, Trinitie is a bundle of nerves, never able to get a full sentence out, and constantly at odds with her husband's ego, yet ever-ready to flash a gritted smile to keep up appearances. When they resort to holding up signs by the side of the road, Lee-Curtis decides to go one further and forces Trinitie to do a mime performance, complete with whiteface. (It's only then, when she's supposed to be silent, that she unloads.)

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is very funny, but it's also fearlessly confident in its stance on hypocrisy, refusing to buckle or compromise. And yet it's not so dark that we don't find humanity in its two main characters. The cracks in their "Praise-Jesus" armor show us who they really are. Additionally, both Brown and Hall turn in performances that deserve to be considered among the year's best.