Distributor:
Paramount Home Entertainment Certificate: PG | 122
Minutes
Director: Jonathan Lynn
Cast:Cuba
Gooding Jr, Beyonce Knowles, Steve Harvey, Mike Epps, Rue McClanahan,
LaTanya Richardson and Wendell Pierce Extras: Yes
A
feel good movie that really
comes alive whenever the Gospel
starts. The Fighting Tempations
stars Cuba Gooding Jr as Darrin,
a failed executive who returns
to his small home town in Georgia
to collect an inheritance from
his favourite, now dead, Aunt
– this turns out to involve
him taking over as head of the BeulahBaptistChurch.
Beyonce
Knowles plays his former childhood sweetheart Lilly, now a single mum
ostracised from the church and singing songs in a nightclub (witness her
panting version of Fever), of course there is a big choir competition on
the horizon and Lilly is the best singer in town, Darrin has a fight on
his hands getting her back into the choir.
Director
Jonathan Lynn has fashioned a movie that owes a huge debt to Sister Act;
It moves along at a fair old pace and allows Gooding Jr to be on his
patented mugging form throughout. Beyonce also gets a little room to
display her dramatic acting abilities and whilst there are no surprises
she is competent enough.
Stand
out moments though are the early Gospel scenes in BeulahChurch, the choir led by
the Reverend Shirley Caesar (a real life Gospel Queen) and getting
mighty carried away in the process Praise the Lord!
EXTRAS:Heaps of extended versions of much of the songs featured in the
movie, extended and deleted scenes, theatrical trailer.
