Gospel Hill was released straight to DVD in Australia and the US, bypassing cinemas, and it’s not difficult to see why.
Full of noble intentions and earnest efforts, this Southern-fried melodrama suffers from overloaded plots, one-dimensional characters and a plodding pace. Marking the directorial debut of actor Giancarlo Esposito, the film tackles the unsolved murder of a civil rights leader, racism, urban development, corruption and the father/son dynamic. All of which represents wasted opportunities, considering the pedigree of the cast.
Danny Glover plays the meek mechanic John Malcolm, who has never gotten over the murder of his pop Paul (Samuel L. Jackson), a Malcolm X-type figure, 40 years ago.
His steely school teacher wife Sarah (Angela Bassett) tries to mobilize the community to stop a greedy corporation from buying all the land in Gospel Hill, the poor black community, to raze the homes and construct a golf course.
Tom Bower is Jack Herrod, the former sheriff, a racist, who could never arrest Paul Malcolm’s killer, and who’s now dying from cancer. He has two sons, (Taylor Kitsch), who’s dating the new school teacher Rosie (Julia Stiles), and Carl (Adam Baldwin), a sharp lawyer who’s having an affair with the black wife of the town doctor Palmer (Esposito), who’s in cahoots with the developers. Yet another sub-plot concerns a disabled vet who’s fired by Herrod and vows revenge.
Trouble is, the script by Jeff Stacy and Jeffrey Pratt Gordon jumps between scenes and characters so often, it takes 25-30 minutes to figure out who they all are and how they inter-connect. And Esposito fails to build dramatic tension or intrigue, or to make the viewer care much about how it all unravels.
The acting is no more than serviceable as the cast is hamstrung by the heavy-handed plotting and flabby dialogue. In short, Gospel Hill delivers preachy messages but lacks fervour and conviction. Minimal extras consist of six scenes plus trailers for upcoming Madman releases.
