Movie reviews: 'Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.' doesn't hold back in its savage satire

This image released by Focus Features shows Regina Hall, left, and Sterling K. Brown in "Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul." (Steve Swisher/Focus Features via AP)

HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL.: 3 ½ STARS

The term mockumentary has become synonymous with Christopher Guest’s work, a mix and match of documentary style and satirical fiction. Movies like “Spinal Tap” and “Best in Show” poked fun at the excesses of rock ’n’ roll and the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, respectively.

“Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.” a new film starring Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown, and now playing in theatres, amps up the mock in mockumentary to present a satirical take on Southern Baptist megachurch values.

Brown and Hall are former power couple Lee-Curtis and Trinitie Childs, pastor and “first lady” of the Wander to Greater Paths church. Once a powerhouse, with a congregation in the thousands, the church was temporarily shuttered in the aftermath of a sex scandal involving the narcissistic Lee-Curtis. “I’m not a perfect man ladies and gentlemen,” he preaches. “God doesn’t make perfect men. What I am is a servant of the Lord. Folks being the Lord’s servant doesn’t mean that you are not susceptible to being lured or seduced or being ambushed by the devil.”

In an effort to rebuild their congregation’s confidence, they set out with a plan to reopen the church and earn back trust, as well as the big bankroll that provided their lavish lifestyle. “We need to connect to people and make them see why they need you back in the pulpit,” says Trinitie.

There are some very funny moments in writer-director Adamma Ebo’s “Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul,” ably performed by Brown and Hall, but it is in the dramatic sections that this mockumentary soars. For proof of this movie’s ability to surprise, see Hall reclaim her power in a gut-wrenching monologue, while wearing mime make-up. It’s remarkable work that blurs the line between the ridiculous and the sublime.

Emmy-winner Brown is equal parts charisma and egomania. His love of Italian hand-crafted shoes, helicopters and the finer things seems ripped from the megachurch playbook, but it is his power that impresses. Brown brings the juice, preaching to the choir with an authority that is both divine and extravagant.

Together their collective passion for piousness and material items may put you in the mind of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, but Lee-Curtis and Trinitie lean heavily into the tragicomedy their real-life counterparts somehow managed to avoid.

“Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.” doesn’t hold back in its savage satire, but it is in the character work by Brown and Hall that cuts the deepest.

ME TIME: 2 STARS

Most movies for kids often have just enough adult content to give parents a chuckle as the young ones giggle along with the silly stuff. “Shrek,” “Minions” and even the wholesome “Toy Story” movies have embedded subliminal messages and jokes for parents who sit dutifully by as their children watch

The same is not usually true with movies aimed at grown-ups. Mature themes about house husbands, unfulfilled career ambitions and marital discord aren’t exactly the stuff of family movie night. And that’s what makes “Me Time,” a new Netflix comedy starring Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg, such a head-scratcher. Hart and Wahlberg should be able to squeeze some adult laughs out of the story of self-discovery by men who explore uncharted avenues in their lives, so why is so much of the humour aimed at kids?

Hart is Sonny Fisher, husband to architect Maya (Regina Hall) and father to two adorable kids. While Maya is advancing her career, Sonny put his dreams of being a musician on hold to stay home with the kids. At home, he’s a natural. It’s in the outside world that his awkwardness comes to the fore.

On the other end of the spectrum is his best friend, Huck Dembo (Wahlberg). The embodiment of YOLO, he’s a party boy and a risk-taker with a way with a phrase.

When Maya convinces Sonny to opt out of a family vacation and take some “me time,” he reluctantly agrees and winds up on Huck’s latest birthday adventure, a trip to Burning Man with a bus load of party people.

Cue the odd mix of adult reckoning and infantile gags.

“Me Time” squanders its two leads in a sea of wasted opportunities. Individually, Hart and Wahlberg bring the funny, so the comedic combo effect should be doubled, but director John “Along Came Polly” Hamburg keeps his two stars apart for most of the film’s first half. By the time their hijinks really begin, the mix of sincerity and silly has already worn thin. Both actors try hard to elevate the poop jokes and frenetic physical comedy, but are left hanging by a script that attempts to mix and match adult concerns with juvenile jokes.

The result is a movie that feels like it can’t decide who it is for; the poop joke audience or the buddy comedy crowd.

“Me Too” is a childish movie that attempts to examine what it means to be an adult.

FUNNY PAGES: 3 ½ STARS

“Funny Pages,” a new, chaotic rite-of-passage movie now in theatres and on VOD, seems to have taken the advice of one its characters to heart. Early on, an art teacher urges his student Robert (Daniel Zolghadri) to “always subvert.” Director Owen Kline, in his quirky directorial debut, challenges the notion of a traditional coming-of-age tale in this gritty celebration of life’s outsiders.

When we first meet Robert, he is being mentored by Mr. Katano (Stephen Adly Guirgis), an encouraging teacher who heaps praise on the teenager’s drawings. “Michael Jordon!” he shouts when he sees a drawing he really likes. When Katano suddenly dies, Robert is left adrift, caught between his suburban parents (Josh Pais and Maria Dizzia), who want him to go to college, and his ambition to create Mad Magazine level artistry.

One quick brush with the law later, Robert quits school and subverts his life by renting a space in a rundown rooming house, already occupied by creepy roommates Barry (Michael Townsend Wright) and Steven (Cleveland Thomas Jr.). He’s hoping some of the unusual living situation will provide him with the edge he needs to create great art.

While working as an assistant for Legal Aid attorney Cheryl (Marcia DeBonis), Robert meets Wallace (Matthew Maher), a tech criminal who once worked as a “colour separator” at Image Comics. Despite Wallace’s crusty exterior and occasionally violent outbursts, Robert is drawn to his talent and tries to recruit him as his new mentor.

Most coming-of-age stories rely on a certain amount of uplift to provide an inspirational punch to the storytelling. Not “Funny Pages.” This is the kind of movie that offers unlikable characters with no happily ever afters. It lives in the fringes of society, and the abrasiveness of the story’s denizens may turn off some viewers, but the richness of the performances is rewarding, no matter how edgy.

The movie’s gritty, grainy look matches its subject matter. There is nothing slick about “Funny Pages.” Like the comic books it reveres, the movie is outsider art unconcerned with the niceties of coming-of-age conventions. It feels destined to become a cult film, much like the movies —“Crumb,” “Ghost World” — and people — Joe Franklin, Peter Bagge — that serve as its inspiration.