Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot

Inspired by a powerful true story, Sound of Hope tells the tale of a small-town pastor’s wife igniting a fire in the hearts of their rural church community in Possum Trot, East Texas. Theirs is a mission to embrace the unwanted children in the foster system, the damaged young souls who have been thrown away. Against all odds, this modest village in the middle of nowhere adopts 77 of the most broken children and proves that with God’s love and a lot of prayer, the battle for America’s most vulnerable can be won.

Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot – Review

Some people in this world have harrowing tales of courage and bravery, and some whose selflessness and trust in Christ glorify the Lord so profoundly that their stories inspire generations. Possum Trot’s people are truly God’s children, and their good works surely please Him greatly.

After the disappointment that was the mishandled Sight, Angel Studios has redeemed itself with another powerful movie about the soaring heights of human compassion. Sound of Hope succeeds not only in subject matter but on all cinematic fronts. Every actor gives a present and natural performance while delivering economic and organic dialogue filtered through the relatable experiences of the character’s extraordinary times.

The result is that Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot is a grounded story that stays out of its own way. The filmmakers clearly understood the inherent power of this real-life drama, and they let it unfold like beautiful music, allowing it to envelope the listener with rousing peaks of optimism and the desperate isolation of fear and doubt only to soothe audience’s wounds with the depth of God’s love and the power of giving over to his will.

While it’s not without its flaws, for instance, the early narration is largely unneeded and a little heavy-handed, the flaws are nothing in comparison to what the filmmakers get right.

Sound of Hope will reaffirm your faith and move you to tears of sorrow and joy. More importantly, it will move some to action. Whereas Sound of Freedom taught us that God’s children are not for sale, Sound of Hope teaches that God’s love can change the world.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Zilch

• Woke free, and it feels so good.

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Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film

The greatest story ever told has returned to the silver screen, but this time with a unique distinction. A Deaf Missions Film presents Jesus’s Ministry and Passion entirely in American Sign Language (ASL), making it the only religious film—and the only film of any kind—to do so. Created by deaf people for deaf people, it is truly a film of a mission with a mission.

Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film Review

Making a quality movie with quality people on both sides of the camera is already a daunting enough task. One need only look at the sad state of American cinema to see how shallow the talent pool has become. Combine that with finding an entire cast that is fluent in American Sign Language, and you would need a miracle to demonstrate even base-level competence. Fortunately, this film surpasses that lowly metric, and Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film exceeds expectations.

Bolstered by chronicling the most important event in human history since the creation of the universe, the cast and crew’s obvious love for the source material, and their clear devotion to the cause of bringing the Word to the hearing impaired, Jesus brings its own special beauty to Christ’s story, despite any weaknesses that it might have.

The performances range from a handful of not-so-greats to a majority of not-too-bads, with Ryan Schlecht playing Caiaphas arguably giving the film’s best performance. Schlecht’s focus is fairly strong throughout, and the role of Caiaphas naturally lends itself to film-friendly theatrics. Playing Jesus, Gideon Firl infuses our savior with a refreshing sweetness not generally portrayed in other big-screen adaptations of our Savior, the one exception perhaps being the chair scene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ.

Jesus’ production value outstrips what was no doubt a very modest budget. Costumes seem appropriate, if maybe a little too new-looking, and locations and sets are perfectly adequate.  The filmmakers took advantage of some computer-enhanced establishing shots that do a fine job conveying the land’s scope and its important locales, even if their artificial nature is apparent.

Unlike The Greatest Story Ever Told or King of Kings, which tells of Jesus’ life from beginning to end to beginning, or The Passion, which focuses on Jesus’ final days on Earth, Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film focuses mainly on Jesus’ ministry, playing all of the hits from healing the sick to raising the dead. It’s an understandable choice given the filmmakers’ goal of spreading the Word to a niche market that hasn’t been exposed to it. Still, it lacks an emotional throughline that a more focused story would have conveyed and subsequently feels like a series of short plays rather than one long narrative. That said, those well-versed in the source material will appreciate the various tales, and each one is so significant to the rest of history, Western civilization, and our own personal stories that I have no doubt many and more deaf viewers will be moved to partner with Christ while hearing believers like myself will find themselves moved by the love and sacrifice made on our unworthy behalfs.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Prove To Me That You’re No Fool, Walk Across My Swimming Pool

• No

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Sight

Sight is based on the true story of Dr. Ming Wang, an impoverished Chinese prodigy who became a pioneering eye surgeon in America. Starring Greg Kinnear and Terry Chen, the movie follows Ming as he confronts the trauma of living through China’s violent Cultural Revolution while restoring sight to a blind orphan.

Note from the author: Delivering the following review gives me no joy. However, I’m no good to you if I’m not always honest in my reviews. I continue to believe in Angel Studios’ mission and that they will continue to deliver quality content despite this mistep.

Sight Review

Since 2023, with the films Cabrini and Sound of Freedom, Angel Studios has begun to establish itself as a premiere conservative alternative for quality films. This makes it all the more heartbreaking that Sight is not one of them.

While the subject matter and the real-life story of Dr. Wang’s life are poignant, Sight suffers in nearly every conceivable way as a film. Both Terry Chen and Greg Kinnear deliver dramatically better performances than the dialogue or direction warrant, but neither is enough to save this Hallmark-level offering.

In a film plagued with problems such as amateurish dialogue, Sight’s most significant deficiency is its disjointed story structure and insistence on simultaneously telling what are essentially two disparate stories better told separately. As it jarringly transitions from Wang’s past to the present, it gives neither a chance to build momentum or breath. Whereas in The Blind, director Andrew Hyatt only occasionally hurt the film’s momentum with awkward and unnecessary cutaways to a more mature Phil Robertson discussing his life, Hyatt leans on the convention as a crutch in Sight and demolishes the pacing and the audience’s ability to connect with events.

Certainly, some films successfully tell non-linear stories in which aspects from the past influence the future and enrich the narrative. Unfortunately, Sight isn’t among them. The “present-day” story of Wang’s breakthrough in optical surgery is a miracle of modern science, but the discovery itself consists mainly of the two leads doing research and expositing research. While the filmmakers attempt to infuse this with some drama and give a human connection, it largely fails.

Conversely, Wang’s young life is one of trials and tribulations that explore the human condition through the prism of China’s Social Revolution. It offers moments both harrowing and touching that do nothing as flashbacks but would have made for a Cabrini-level experience told independently, with Wang’s breakthroughs better left as a title card at the film’s end.

Ultimately, Sight is a swing and a miss for Angel Studios.

WOKE ELEMENTS

None

• Blessedly Woke-Free

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Back to Black

“Back to Black” is a 2024 biographical drama film based on the life of British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, portrayed by Marisa Abela. It delves into Winehouse’s rise to fame, tumultuous relationships, and the making of her Grammy-winning album, “Back to Black.”

Back to Black Review

In a film glorifying a manic alcoholic, “artiste” spiraling out of control only to crash land into an early grave, Back to Black benefits from capable, surprisingly self-restrained hands behind the camera. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (50 Shades of Grey) and shot by cinematographer Polly Morgan (The Woman King), Back to Black never manages to engender non-fans to its subject or build any emotional bonds to the narrative.

Furthermore, the film’s earnest performances never quite transcend to captivating. This is almost entirely due to the light in which Winehouse is portrayed as emotionally immature and seemingly unpleasant. Further hindering the actors is the prioritization of intervals that ostensibly took place between more traditionally interesting dramatic moments, robbing the performers of their chance to stretch and shine and stealing any opportunity for the audience to connect.

One notable example is that of a drug-induced fight between Whinehouse and her husband. In lieu of what must have been an emotionally charged confrontation and the almost certainly empathetically identifiable details leading up to it, the film depicts the conclusion of them chasing one another down several very public streets and its quick resolutive embrace.

Perhaps this resolution would feel meaningful if we were ever given a reason to bond with the characters outside of Amy’s talent. Unfortunately, even her adoration for her grandmother (one of the only interpersonal relationships even mildly explored in the film) is portrayed as shallowly based on her “style” and early sexual exploits. The same can be said for the alcoholism for which Winehouse is as well known as for that of her music. While she is regularly shown drowning her feelings in a bottle, the root cause of her addiction isn’t much explored beyond the sentiment, “That’s just Amy.”

Without a doubt, Winehouse was a beautiful vocalist and a talented composer. However, the over-celebrated perceived “edginess” of her beehive hairdo, ample tattoos, and tendency to intersperse crass lyrics and curse words into traditional-sounding soulful jazz, along with her unfortunate and virtually unexplored substance abuse, isn’t enough to carry a nearly two-hour narrative.

WOKE ELEMENTS

NOTE: I would have rated the Woke-O-Meter lower save for the fact that the film strongly portrayed the importance of a loving father in Winehouse’s life. Despite some of her lyrics, the film also clearly showed that she yearned for a more traditional life as a wife and mother. Subsequently, it boosted the percentage.

Dash of Man-Hate

• Some of the lyrics to songs sung early in the film glorify the degradation of men.

This One is Tough

• The big one—the one that cost the movie most of the 50 points that I removed but could arguably be ignored or cause to mark the movie as completely Woke—is that of its message. Winehouse is portrayed as a manic and substance abuser who repeatedly physically abused her husband and ultimately killed herself with alcohol. She’s also (especially in the first half of the film) portrayed as an unlikable and sarcastic brat who is overly dramatic, rude, and thoughtless. However, it’s very difficult to tell whether the film’s tone is one of celebrating these qualities as the mark of a “strong, independent woman” who carved out her own path or if it intends to show how these personality traits led to her early demise.
  • Ultimately, I heavily penalized it due to the film’s last line, a narrated reading from a letter Winehouse wrote as a young(er) girl. It read something to the effect that she just had to be herself. This would suggest a celebration even though “being herself” meant dying of alcohol poisoning before the age of 30.

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Cabrini

“Christian” films are often rightly panned as sappy, low-budget fare with poor production value and worse performers. However, if 2023 taught us anything (aside from the fact that Disney is a barren moonscape of creativity), it’s that films that promote strong Christian values don’t have to be schlocky tales that beat Christianity over audience heads. February’s “Jesus Revolution” set the table while the $200 million dollar blockbuster “Sound of Freedom” served Hollywood some five-star crow.

Angel Studios continues this much-needed trend in entertainment with Cabrini. Every aspect of the film, from the performances of the extras to the massive ghetto street sets, is indistinguishable from the best of its secular counterparts.

Cristiana Dell’Anna, who plays Mother Cabrini, is superb, flawlessly imbuing the 19th-century nun with the fervent and unwavering strength of purpose and dedication needed to surmount the ever-growing number of obstacles in her way. Yet, Dell’Anna doesn’t neglect the subtle vulnerability and motherly nurturing needed to breathe full life into Cabrini. It’s a performance deserving of accolades and awards.

Another standout is Romana Maggiora Vergano, who plays Vittoria, a young woman orphaned on the streets of New York and taken in by Cabrini and the sisters of her order. Vergano imbues Vittoria with both the fragility of someone who has been hurt repeatedly and often and the strength of someone who has chosen to survive despite her pain, resulting in a damaged young woman who finds peace and purpose.

While most everyone gives a performance worthy of praise, surprisingly, John Lithgow’s brief turn as the Mayor of New York, Jacob Gould*, is somewhat lackluster in comparison. Lithgow’s natural flamboyance, in combination with his beautifully crafted and period-accurate costumes, culminate in something more resembling a mustache-twirling villain from a silent film than the deeply bigoted aristocrat that he and the filmmakers were going for. Fortunately, his screen time is incredibly brief and does little to detract from the overall quality.

Helping to raise everyone’s performances, Cabrini’s script, penned by the same duo who brought us Sound of Freedom, is replete with crisp and economical dialogue that knows when to be grounded and when to soar. However, there are a handful of very brief instances in which the dialogue seems to reflect more modern sensibilities than perhaps makes sense.

For instance, there is a scene in which Mother Cabrini is trying to get a special dispensation from the Pope to become the first woman to be given a mission in the Church’s almost two-thousand-year history. Despite this and the fact that she is an early 19th-century nun in Italy (a country that didn’t give women the right to vote until the end of WWII), when she is turned down, she defiantly turns to the Pope and brazenly asks, “is it because I’m a woman?”

Well, of course it is. Within the context of history, region, and vocation, it’s a silly question and one that seems unlikely to have been asked. That said, these are rare instances in the extreme and likely only noticeable by nitpickers.

As excellent as Cabrini is, it never quite builds to the emotional crescendo that one might expect from a story about such grand and far-reaching accomplishments made in the face of millennia-built bigotries and traditions. This is in part due to the film’s grand scope. It is a deeply personal story that attempts to squeeze in one too many of Mother Cabrini’s accomplishments, which in turn dilutes the needed focus.

Ironically, what hinders the depth of audience connection most is the voice that the writers have given Cabrini and the other people of faith in the film. In its efforts to avoid being a “Christian” film, they couch far too much of what would normally be religious dialogue in secular vagaries. In fact, God is never directly mentioned. The result is that Cabrini’s accomplishments come across as her own and glorify her instead of God. In a film about a pioneering woman whose faith ran so deeply that no fewer than four miracles are attributed to her, God’s absence is a startling omission.

That’s not to say that God’s presence is never felt. His precepts and philosophies of behavior, as well as the aesthetic trappings of Catholicism, are omnipresent throughout the film.

Ultimately, Cabrini is an uplifting and beautifully rendered story of an amazing woman whose fervent life of selfless devotion to God is a must-see for the faithful and faithless alike.

WOKE ELEMENTS

I sincerely struggled with this section due to some of the dialogue. Ultimately, I’m giving Angel Studios et al the benefit of the doubt.

• It takes place at a time and location that was not among our history’s brightest moments. How the Italian immigrants were treated was despicable, but there were moments when it seemed like the script was making a commentary on today. I’m not sure if I’m being overly sensitive or if it was there.
  • The same goes for some of the dialogue about being a woman at the time.
    • At one point, Cabrini asks, with total defiance, “Is it because I’m a woman?”
      • Obviously, it’s because she was a woman. She was raised in late 1800s Italy and has followed a calling to be a part of an organization in which women play supporting roles (important supporting roles but supporting roles).
        • Women couldn’t even vote; there had never been a women-led mission since the Catholic Church’s founding in 30 A.D.
          • It would be a completely alien concept, and surprise at the male leadership’s position seems inappropriate.

*The real Mayor Gould was a Democrat. Just wanted to point that out. You guys are always on the wrong side of history.

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Bob Marley: One Love

Bob Marley seemingly had an interesting life. He was abandoned by his mother at the age of 10 and left to raise himself in the unstable and violent ruins of what was only years before Colonial Jamaica. Later, he was targeted for execution for daring to sing songs about peace and love. All the while, he maintained a complex relationship with his wife, full of mistresses and dual families. Were Bob Marley: One Love to have spent more than a few minutes on these things, perhaps the film would have been compelling.

Instead, three-quarters of One Love tells the tale of what was ostensibly the easiest time in his life. After narrowly avoiding an assassination attempt, Marley moves his wife and children to the United States to live with his mother while he spends a bachelor’s year in England writing and playing music in his room, writing and playing music with his band, and writing and playing music in the studio.

Then, in a massive twist, he spends another year playing music in stadiums around Europe and the U.S., all the while being ripped off by his agent: a moment given all of three minutes of screen time.

It’s possible that even this time in his life, which appeared to possibly be a mix of both fun and poignancy, could have been engaging and thought-provoking. Unfortunately, most audiences will never know because 70% of this film is utterly unintelligible, and the 30% that is isn’t contiguous but consists of broken bits of randomly understood words or phrases swallowed up in hyper-realistic Jamaican accents.

Ultimately, where the narrative falls flattest (assuming that I was able to get this gist of things from what I could understand) is that Bob Marley’s music didn’t change anything. It didn’t end war or poverty. It didn’t enhance the prosperity of anyone (writ large) outside of Marley’s financial circle. It certainly didn’t change Jamaica’s geopolitics. Yet the film pulls a muscle, trying to convince the audience otherwise.

Perhaps the best way to sum up the movie is with that of its closing vignette. As Marley makes his triumphant return to Jamaica in order to play a “unity” concert, the film ends with a series of title cards, one of which says something to the effect that “in a symbolic show of unity, Marley brought Jamaica’s two bitter and violent political rivals together on stage.” Then we see actual footage of the event in which these two miserable-looking politicians are uncomfortably pulled together to join hands over Marley’s head. He then voices a meaningless platitude, and we fade to black.

Of course, nothing changed after that. The two politicians couldn’t get off stage and away from one another fast enough, and in the two years between this moment and an election that ushered in an era of global-scale drug smuggling, nearly a thousand people were murdered amidst the political conflicts.

Trying to make meaningless things meaningful isn’t a great recipe for engrossing cinema. Combine that with incomprehensible dialogue and a rather boring 3/4 of a film, and you’re better off parking you and your special someone on the couch and watching a little-known classic like Somewhere In Time for Valentine’s Day.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Rastafari

• The Rastafari religion is an always heretical, sometimes racist Abrahamic faith that believes that Emperor Haile Selassie, who ruled Ethiopia between 1930 and 1945, was the second coming of Christ.
  • The religion gets the bulk of the narrative’s goodwill. It isn’t just treated as something Marley believed in but is revered in the film.
    • So much so that an important narrative refrain that haunts Marley throughout his life, ***SPOILER*** a dream about his white colonial father on horseback chasing him through burning sugarcane fields, is transformed into Black Jesus to take Marley to Heaven to symbolize that he has been able to find peace. ***END SPOILER***
    • In another scene that does nothing to further the story in any way, a stoned-out-of-his-mind Rastafari leader makes certain to disdainfully remind Marley and the audience that their “god is not a white man with blond hair and blue eyes. [Their] god is Black.”
      • This is said with full venom, and the scene ends.

Oh Golly, Gee

• There’s a mostly intelligible joke made at a white guy’s expense; the only thing that is understandable is “white boy” and their laughter at him.
• Another white guy is shown to be a complete stiff for comedic purposes.
  • He can’t understand what Marley and his band are saying, and they laugh at him…but guess what? Ain’t nobody understand him.

Aye Be Rabadaba Non-Deybadoo Colonization

• Something, something, conquering. Britain bad – something, something, colonization.
  • Maybe this was a legitimate argument, or maybe it was woke nonsense; after all, the Brits left Jamaica the year Marley was born, but who can tell? Half of the movie is unintelligable.

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Napoleon

By the age of 45, Napoleon had conquered 40%-60% of Europe, with much of the rest of the continent having treaties with France that granted it significant wealth and influence. Yet, most Westerners know little more about Monsieur Bonaparte than he tucked his hand in his shirt for a portrait and he was short (he wasn’t – by the standards of the time, he was of average height)

Starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular emperor, Napoleon tells the story of his rise and fall, beginning with the battle that earned him his General stripes to his ultimate defeat and exile (spoiler alert – of course, it happened over 200 years ago, so not knowing is a bit on you). In a film about an ambitious and charismatic world-conquering leader with a well-documented ego the size of his empire and a cutting wit to match, it seems more than reasonable that a 2.5-hour epic about his exploits would make for a riveting film.

However, for reasons only known to them, both director Ridley Scott and screenwriter David Scarpa chose to filter the events of this complex man through the prism of his odd relationship with his first wife, Josephine. As a result, much of the film feels repetitive as the Bonapartes spend time apart: Napoleon writes her letters, they come together, they fight, they make up, and the cycle begins anew. All of this is occasionally punctuated with the afterthought of battles that feel more like fanservice to history buffs than they do the world history-altering events that they were (never mind their glaring historical inaccuracies).

What makes it worse is that the audience gets everything that it needs to understand the relationship within the two’s first few scenes together and via the copious narrated letters that we hear throughout the film. Furthermore, Phoenix, who has played some wonderfully dark and quirky characters during his career, spends most of the movie looking either sulky or clinically depressed. Except for one or two actions taken during the film, the movie gives no sense of the charismatic leader who charmed an army into rebellion…twice.

Ridley Scott seemingly thought it was far more critical to portray Bonaparte as a socially awkward cuckold than to give us a film that lived up to this one’s tagline: “He Came From Nothing. He Conquered Everything.”

At the film’s end, the title cards list the number of battles that Napoleon led, as well as his major campaigns and the number of those killed as a result. It would have been great to have seen a movie in which those world-changing battles had not been treated as nuisances, and audiences came to understand a complex man whose social reforms still affect modern society 200 years later.

WOKE ELEMENTS

Wokeness ruined the movie, but the movie isn’t woke.

The creators’ own wokeness likely shaped their outlooks on Napoleon, which precluded them from highlighting his greatness (which would have made his downfall and foibles all the more poignant). However, there doesn’t seem to be an agenda to the film. There are no girl bosses, no out-of-place diversity, Christianity isn’t trashed, and I didn’t see any LGBT agenda-driven BS. It’s just not a great film.

We dinged the movie 10 points for a couple of jarringly out-of-place sex scenes. The purpose of each was seemingly to illustrate that he was an ineffective lover for no other reason than to knock him down a peg in the viewer’s mind.

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