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david-3323
Reviews
The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah (2006)
Sight gags and verbal humor make this film a festival "savior" :-)
I saw American Messiah recently, and I was completely charmed by it in every way. When I read the two negative reviews on here, I had to wonder whether we had seen the same film. Anybody who didn't laugh at this probably needs to be on anti-depressants, because it's hard to see anybody else not laughing a lot. Although I agree that the script was well-written and witty, even if you put that aside, just the individual gags are worth the price of the ticket. Here are some of the ones I remember that stood out:
-- Having Brian (the "local messiah") go down to a lake to offer paid baptisms for $1.18 is screamingly funny, partly because he thinks it's a good deal because other messiahs would charge $1.25 and partly because he thinks it would be undignified to charge less than a dollar. If you can't see the hilarious commentary about modern religion and money (and find humor here), you have a funny bone missing.
-- I don't want to give away the punch line, but the whole bit with the t-shirts is very funny. The message on the t-shirts is supposed to be based on Jesus' message about "suffer the little children," but the actual message becomes lost in translation at the t-shirt printer and becomes a message that's just the opposite of its intent. The resulting t-shirt is hilarious.
-- Watching Brian show off his collection of "Jesus action figures" is surreal and very, very funny. Look for Jesus Griffey Jr. and Macaroni Jesus 2.
-- Speaking of the action figures, there's a hilarious scene with one of the Jesus action figures racing against a toy car, complete with Jesus healing the wrecked car.
-- There's a scene when Brian and his followers are going door to door. They finally find someone who wants them to come in and perform a miracle. The funny twist is that the guy in the house is crazier than they are, and he wants Brian to get rid of imaginary demons in the house.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. There is a LOT to laugh about in this movie. Anybody who can't see that is too busy trying to sit around and come up with existing movies to compare this to (as someone else here dd). This movie is unique. You're not going to find a good comparison. Watch it for yourself and find out.