The Gospel

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What’s the Story?

David (Boris Kodjoe) is a flashy R&B singer, enjoying his rising fame along with his fast-talking, cigar-puffing, Hummer-driving manager Wesley (Omar Gooding). Their careers are put on hold, though, when David receives word that his father is ill. Some 15 years earlier, the Bishop Fred Taylor (Clifton Powell) disappointed his son by paying too much attention to his work and not enough to David and his dying mother. Now the prodigal son returns, to make up with his father and help save his ministry.

Is It Any Good?

David's confused priorities are revealed in his tense relationship with his former childhood friend and classmate, now Reverend Charles Frank (Idris Elba), who means to take over the church from Fred and feels competitive with David. In this enterprise, Frank is both egged on and challenged by his wife (and David's cousin) Charlene (Nona Gaye, mostly reduced to reaction shots). While they refer mysteriously to their "problem," Lifetime-movie-style, the reason for their estrangement is both repressed and obvious, in the form of clichés.

THE GOSPEL is inspiring and energetic when it's focused on music. Assembled by Kirk Franklin, the numbers are lively and sometimes -- as in the case of Yolanda Adams' brief performance -- quite brilliant. For the most part, however, the movie is awkwardly structured and soapily slow-moving. The film is hampered by a clunky structure (some scenes seem cut together randomly, others just click time while waiting for the next choir number) that detracts from its basic theme, the simultaneous conflict and sameness between pop music stardom and church celebrity and commercialism, and the emphasis on profits that drives both.