I must say there wasn’t an immediate appeal to this movie for me, but once I saw the good acting, good comedy, and heard the good music I enjoyed the whole thing.
This is a movie that may help Cuba Gooding Jr. get off the mud slide his career has taken as he has watched his career sink since his Oscar-winning performance in Jerry Maguire, but it can’t be the end all savior.
Darrin Fox (Gooding Jr.) is a slick-talking New York City advertising executive that has lied his way to the top but finds himself losing his job and learning about his aunt Sylvia’s death back in his hometown of Monte Carlo all in the same day.
Fox travels back to Monte Carlo, Georgia to claim the inheritance his Aunt Sally left him, but he finds there is a catch and he must fulfill her last wish before he can collect.
So what could this dying wish be?
Create a gospel choir and lead it to success at the Gospel Explosion of course, but with no decent singers in sight he has his work cut out for him.
After an unsuccessful search for more singers he finds the lead singer he is looking for in Lily (Knowles), a local nightclub singer, and I must say, seeing Knowles sing “Fever” just about made me wanna say, “Uh Huh!”
But after a lot of hard work and the pieces of the choir puzzle are in place this project still won’t come together as easy as it should as a spiteful choir member, Paulina (Richardson), who has been denied her rightful place as the leader of the Beulah Baptist Church choir tries to make it as hard as possible for the make-shift choir. Even with Paulina’s antics things always seem to work out just fine.
The biggest highlight of this flick would have to be Mike Epps’s views on the female “booty.” As the self proclaimed “Bootyologist,” Epps gives Fox the Booty Breakdown leaving the crowd rolling in their seats.
A couple more bonuses are Steve Harvey as the local AM radio DJ that touches on just about every social function that goes on, and Montell Jordan who plays an inmate on the Beulah choir. Jordan towering height and the high voice he uses makes his appearance very funny.
The Fighting Temptations may have just about the worst movie poster of all time but the movie behind that poster is definitely worth the time. It will have audiences clapping along to the music and dancing in the aisles, don’t miss out.
