Religious satire makes for great comedy! I’m a huge fan of religious satire. Any movie that makes fun of religion and shows it’s hypocrisy within humanity, I’m there! Honk for Jesus is one of those movies that after the long week, I needed a good laugh. It may not be the best when it comes to religious satire or poking fun at mega-churches, but there’s a lot to like about this movie. Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall keep you laughing all the way to the end and even have a way of making you feel sympathetic toward the hypocritical mega-church ministers that they play in the movie. Now, while I do not have the African American experience when it comes to Baptist churches, especially mega-churches in the south, there’s a universal theme within this movie that makes it worth watching. You can literally put any mega-church pastor as a character in this film and it would work just the same. Normally, a story like this would just be sad and leave you shaking your head, but it does take two great performances to make us as an audience feel sympathy for the main characters

The story is about a mega-church pastor and his wife who are forced to close the doors after a sex scandal hits the pulpit! It’s not just any kind of sex scandal. A minister getting caught committing adultery with the church secretary would be too common, but it’s a homosexual sex scandal regarding a mega church pastor that rails against homosexuality. That’s when you have comedy gold. The movie is done in a mockumentary style as this pastor and his wife try to reopen the church on an Easter Sunday while most of their congregation have flocked to a rival Baptist Church who are opening a second location on the same Easter Sunday. That’s when the comedy of errors start to happen. The best thing about this movie is it being told in a mockumentary fashion. I don’t know if it would have worked any other way, but the dry sarcastic sense of humor brought on by the documentary style makes this movie 10 times funnier than it probably should be.

Throwing great performances by Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall and you got a winner. Great casting can make or break a movie, and both were perfect in these roles. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to see Sterling K. Brown play a demon hunter at Supernatural, but he makes a great mega-church pastor that’s easy to ridicule. The film’s audience is probably a predominantly African American audience, but like I said before. it has a very universal theme so it’s a movie that I think everybody should see and would laugh at.

Now, it’s not a perfect movie, there are quite a few times where scenes should have been cut down. The film has its fair share of awkward moments that aren’t really funny when they should be. And it certainly has some pacing issues, but honestly, that’s probably more due to the particular style of the film. Documentaries do make you feel uncomfortable at times. They’re not meant to be a slapstick type of comedy because you’re not watching a film like The Naked Gun or Airplane, it does have some pacing issues. It’s not enough to make you not watch this movie. I’m just saying that it could have been better. Even though the film doesn’t go out of its way to say that it’s Atlanta, the city is very much an important character in the film, especially with the African American community. Probably the biggest flaws really do come down to editing. But these flaws don’t take away from the overall humor. The film starts out strong and then falters a bit in the middle but ends on a high note and finishes strong.

Overall, the film does its job of making you rethink religion and whether you should go to a mega-church or give them money. Sure, the film does have a bit a bit of political commentary when it comes to religion, but the film knows it’s audience! I enjoyed the movie because it is religious satire and although there are some issues that could be fixed if they ever came out with a director’s cut or decided to do a sequel at the end of the day it’s a hilarious film that’s worth watching. Maybe it’s not worth the price of a movie ticket, but if you have Peacock streaming then add it to your list of things to watch this weekend. With great performances and a fantastic subject that feels way too common in American society, Honk for Jesus will certainly make you laugh. And if people are offended by the film, they probably don’t have any sense of humor at all anyway. I highly recommend this movie to anybody who loves to make fun of religion or has a dark sense of humor. If you’re worried that it will only appeal to an African American audience, you’re wrong. Its universal theme makes it a film that everybody should check out. I can’t wait to watch it again on Peacock.