Cuba Gooding, Jr. is among one of the most likable actors I can think of, who always seems subjected to bottom-barrel dreck. His performance as Tre Styles, living on the wrong side of the town with a smart brother and a thug for a friend in John Singleton's Boyz N The Hood is one I recall as one of the strongest of the eighties and one of infinitely powerful emotional impact. On a lighter not, he too gave a quick-witted, inspired performance as a luckless schmuck in pursuit of $2,000,000 in Rat Race. In Jonathan Lynn's Fighting Temptations, his character is Darrin Hill, an advertising executive in New York, who roots stem from Monte Carlo, Georgia. He learns of his aunt Sally's death just as he was leaving his firm with all his things after being informed he was fired for having a resume consisting mainly of false pretenses. He flies down to Georgia to attend the church he did as a child, and is reacquainted with the heat, the atmosphere, and the backsides of the girls by Mike Epps' Luscious. Darrin, then, learns that his aunt left him $150,000 in her will if he can rebuild the church's choir from the ground-up in six weeks. Learning that those who willingly want to join are less than qualified, he holds auditions, wanders around town, and in the meantime, constantly tries to form a relationship with Beyoncé Knowles' Lilly, his crush at a young age who had her heart set on Michael Jackson.
The story here is told with an alertness to its formula, yet a bounce in its step, fully capitalizing on the potential of Gooding, Jr. as an actor and Beyoncé Knowles as a screen presence. As someone who had no desire to watch any film Beyoncé went near and a distaste for her music, she is wonderful here, playing a character not as helpless or as self-consumed as I thought. She also isn't placed in the foreground either, nor does the film feel like it's simply capitalizing off her bankability as a singer. Her and Gooding, Jr. make a perfect pair.
Yet what's really to praise and write home about with The Fighting Temptations is the soundtrack. The choir sequences are energized precisely to give them the added effect and extra boost they need to work. The little rap tune, "To Da River," that comes relatively late in the game, is about as catchy as any song can be, and so often do the songs break free from the depressing shackles of being trite or undercooked.
If there's one point of "triteness" the film incorporates, it's the melodrama and Darrin's slightly smarmy attitude to the idea of running this choir and his romance, which is played out and redundant. It's not as painstakingly cheesy or as tiresome as it could've been (worse, more confused writing that is present in a melodramatic picture like Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman would've steered this film off the nearest cliff). Not to mention, if the film would've had, say, lesser performers, ones with not nearly as much drive, passion, or soul as the cast presented here, this would've spiraled further into lame, contrived mediocrity.
There isn't too much in The Fighting Temptations, and it does go a tad too long, with a story that reaches the two hour mark. It's not great cinema by any stretch; it's the kind I call "Sunday morning-fare," the kind of film you tune into fifteen minutes after it started, watch till the credits, and resume your day unaffected in any way, positive or negative. As awkward of a statement this may be, there's worse "Sunday morning-fare" out there. Certainly it'd be harder to find one as nice, free-spirited, genial, and effervescent as this.
Starring: Cuba Gooding, Jr. Beyoncé Knowles, Mike Epps, and Steve Harvey. Directed by: Jonathan Lynn.
