Plot Summary
Hamilton A. Vaughn (HAV) was a party boy who had a prison turnaround that led him to be the right-hand man to the prominent pastor of Mission Church. The pastor tells HAV that he wants HAV to take over the Mission Church, but the pastor’s son objects and decides to get HAV in trouble with a woman to get him sent to prison. There’s also a woman who runs a social services program and another couple who wants a baby, even though it’s hard to know what they have to do with HAV. In the end, HAV will have (lol) to come to terms with his faith and who he really believes God is?
Production Quality (1.5 points)
Unfortunately, like many small church films, HAV Faith (what kind of title is that?) is somewhat cheap in its production. However, in some ways, it is better than most small church films. Video quality is fine, but camera work is shaky in some parts, and lighting is poor in some places. Audio quality is sometimes fine, but other times it is weird. The soundtrack is generic. Sets, locations, and props are slightly cheap and limited, but they improve as the film progresses. For what it’s worth, the production ends in a better way than it began, but the editing is too all over the place. In the end, this is just an average production.
Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)
As previously alluded to, although this is supposed to be a modern-day retelling of the Old Testament story of Joseph, HAV Faith is all over the place and certainly does not only focus on this. Thus, it is very hard to follow what is happening, and the story is very disorienting at times. The plot is presented in a very confusing fashion as lots of very disconnected and unrelated subplots, which have no relation to each other, are thrown into a proverbial bowl and mixed up. As the story jumps from one thing to the next with no continuity to speak of, most of the characters, especially the Christian ones and the cheesy villain, are very annoying and stereotypical as they spout programmed dialogue. Also, part of this story is basically a save the church plot, even though most of it is spent on rushing through parts that have nothing to do with the Joseph parallel. Unfortunately, it’s hard to understand why this movie was made.
Acting Quality (1 point)
A lot of the time, these cast members are amateurish and are overly-enunciated in their line delivery. Emotions are over the top and overly practiced. While there are a few good moments and some improvement throughout, it’s not enough to overcome the overall futility of this film.
Conclusion
Bible story transpositions always problematic because of issues that come up when trying to convert historical plots to modern ideas. However, things really get complicated when you shove a handful of unrelated subplots into the film that basically have no relation to the original idea in any way. All I can ask after watching this film is what were they exactly thinking? One would think that there were multiple writers throwing ideas into this pot, but that is not the case. This one is a real head-scratcher, to say the least.
Final Rating: 2.5 out of 10 points
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