NoWireHangers Reviews

American Comedy (2023)

Worthless "comedy" without jokes but with terrible acting

[1/10 · 3 May 2024]

If a movie has "comedy" in the title, the viewer should be able to expect jokes, but the makers of "American Comedy" doesn't seem to have even tried to deliver. I don't think there was even a single joke in the entire 70-ish minute movie (the one good thing about the movie was that it didn't last very long). Both writing and acting is terrible. There's no coherent plot, and the lead actor, Pete Allman, is one of the worst Donald Trump impersonators I've seen. He has none of Trump's speech patterns or gestures and doesn't seem to even be trying. The only explanation I can think of as to why he was cast instead of someone with talent is that he's the producer too. The actors who plays Vladimir Putin, Nancy Pelosi and some others are also terrible. And since this is an American low budget movie, of course Eric Roberts has a small role in it.

Despite the title, this is not a comedy, just a waste of time. Not recommended,

The Atheist Delusion (2016 Video)

Standard Ray Comfort movie. At least this one has nice stock footage.

[1/10 · 29 July 2016]

"The Atheist Delusion" is your standard Ray Comfort street interviews. This time his argument is one we've heard before, about creation needing a creator. Because a book couldn't make itself, DNA couldn't make itself, therefore, God, and specifically, the god of the Bible, did it. Atheists, we are told (and this we've also heard before) know that there is a god but deny it because they like fornication and pornography.

"The Atheist Delusion" is a full hour of the same old creationist arguments, street interviews and eventually Comfort's old "Are you a good person?" routine. It offers nothing we haven't seen or heard dozens of times before. On the plus side, it does have lots of beautiful stock footage of animals and nature.

David and Goliath (2015)

Terrible acting and badly directed.

[3/10 · 10 November 2015]

Tim Chey's "David and Goliath" fails on every level. I can't remember when I last saw so many terrible acting performances in one movie. There are some exceptions, such as the lead actor playing David, but many actors are terrible and the villains are also ridiculous stereotypes. The script is repetitive and the dialogue and acting is laughable. And to make it even more silly, there's one or two sequences involving Goliath shouting insults that's reused over and over throughout the movie.

David & Goliath offers some unintentionally funny scenes but other than that, there's no reason to watch it. It was more interesting watching with the director's commentary, although he repeated himself a lot.

Accidental Activist (2013)

Another movie about persecuted Christians and evil homosexuals.

[2/10 · 11 August 2015]

This 58 minute film was produced by the American Family Association (AFA), an anti-gay group labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It tells the story of Ted, happily married Christian father of three. One day, he signs a petition in support of traditional marriage (that is, against gay marriage). Before long, his name appears in a gay newspaper and gay activists make threatening phone calls and start picketing outside his business. It's never made clear why the gay activist singled Ted out, of all the people who signed the petition, but it may have something to do with the fact that the gay rights group and it's leader, an evil Italian, want his business to fail so that they can move into his property. Ted didn't want to make a big deal out of this, but now he has to decide whether he will stand up for his beliefs, even as the angry, intolerant gays want to silence him. The movie ends rather abruptly and I wonder why they didn't bother making it into a real feature length film.

"Accidental Activist" is another (lesser known) movie in the genre of Christian films in which Christians in America are portrayed as persecuted for their beliefs (better known examples would be "God's Not Dead", "Last Ounce of Courage" and "Christmas with a Capital C". If you like that genre and think this sounds like a great story, give "Accidental Activist" a try. If not, don't bother.

Audacity (2015)

Ray Comfort vs the evil homosexuals.

[1/10 · 3 July 2015]

"Audacity" is the latest project from Ray Comfort (aka "the banana man"). This time Comfort and his friends have raised their ambitions (after movies like "180", "Evolution vs God" and "Noah") and actually made a movie (although less than feature length) with a story and real actors (actors we've never heard about before and whose careers are probably dead after this film).

But, as usual in a Ray Comfort movie, the big hero is Ray Comfort playing himself. We get lots of footage of his trademark street interviews. This time the topic is homosexuality, and Comfort uses his brilliant intellect to convince his interviewees (all intelligent interviewees are, as always, left on the cutting room floor) that homosexuality is evil. Because the Bible says so. Meanwhile, we have the story of Peter and Diana. Peter is a Christian who knows homosexuality is evil. Diana doesn't agree but after seeing Ray Comfort's brilliant Youtube videos she will inevitably change her mind. The tag line of the film is "Love can't stay silent", and our protagonist, Peter, shows his Christian love by never missing a chance to preach to the gays or break up their relationships. Becauase as always in the Orwellian world of Ray Comfort's god, love is hate, hate is love. This film exists only to tell homosexuals they must change, to remind others they must never accept homosexuals for who they are but, in the name of "love", always remind them of how wretched and sinful they are, and (last but not least) to provide Ray Comfort with another ego boost. And I'm a sucker who was so curious about this movie I actually paid to see it before it's going to be released for free on Youtube.

The Sobbing Stone (2005)

A new low in Christian filmmaking.

[1/10 · 17 April 2013]

This movie is terrible in so many ways. First, the story. It's an unusual one, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but "The Sobbing Stone" tries to be a mystery working up to a twist in the end, but fails miserably because the big revelation in the end is obvious from the beginning, which make the whole "story" pointless. There's lots of bad acting and tedious religious discussions that start out of nowhere not because it comes natural in the story but because the movie needs them because it is a Christian film and to pad the running time (basically there's a Christian character and an angry atheist who argue about who's the worst hypocrite and it turns out the atheist has some Freudian reason to dislike Christians because they remind him of his bad mother). Second, I can forgive a low budget feeling if a movie is well made but director and editor Robert G. Christie shows a complete lack of talent. I haven't seen such bad directing and editing in years. He seems to be unaware of such basics as the 180 degree rule.

There's really no reason to watch "The Sobbing Stone" unless you want to experience a new low in Christian filmmaking. This is a film that truly deserves its IMDb rating of 1,3/10. It makes movies like "C Me Dance" and "Spirits Among Us" look like Oscar material. This may very well be the worst Christian movie ever made outside of Nigeria (and at least "666, Beware the End is at Hand" had some entertainment value).

Rape of the Soul (2006)

This must be a joke

[1/10 · 20 March 2013]

I rarely write reviews on IMDb but seeing this movie had so many 10 star reviews I had to give my opinion:

This film starts out with a story about how Michael A Calace ("writer, director, actor, inventor") was refused permission to shoot a movie in the Archdiocese of Toronto. Convinced he was the victim of some evil conspiracy, he starts to investigate the Archdiocese's website and finds examples of what he believes to be hidden pornographic and satanic messages in its artwork. As he continues his "investigation" he realizes this is a worldwide phenomenon and the viewer is treated to over two hours of examples. A few of these (including some renaissance artworks) may really have hidden messages in them, but most of them are just plain nonsense, about as credible as TBN's exposé of backwards messages in rock music. Calace even claims that a renaissance era painting depicts Vladimir Putin and his wife and that this proves the painter had some evil, supernatural guidance. After all of this nonsense, he calls these alleged messages with "rape of the soul" and compares them to actual rape, which is a slap in the face of actual rape victims.

"Rape of the Soul" offers some insight into the deluded religious mind of its director, and a few laughs, but nothing else, and is certainly not worth spending 140 minutes of your life on, let alone money to pay for it. I'm seriously wondering if this movie may be a hoax, a mockumentary parody of religious scare films.

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (2005)

"Was that a joke?" Look elsewhere for comedy.

[4/10 · 6 August 2006]

Albert Brooks is sent by the US government to India on a mission to find out what makes muslims laugh. Why India? Yes there's a lot of muslims there but most of the people Brooks meet seems to be Hindus. No matter what they are they don't think he's funny. And he isn't. Not in this movie.

Initially, most of the jokes are based on how badly planned his trip was. He gets to fly business class instead of first class. Nobody comes to pick him up at the airport so he has to take a cab. His office is small and has no computer, etc. Funny? After that, there is a slightly amusing scene where he has a conversation with his secretary, Maya, and they don't know when the other is joking or not. "Was that a joke?". According to his plans, he was supposed to go to Pakistan, but he doesn't get a visa, so he has to cross the border illegally in order to spend a couple of hours there with some would be comedians. This makes Indian and Pakistani intelligence agents suspicious, and there's almost a political conflict. Brooks realises he has failed and goes is sent back to the US. The End. His wife, unaware of his failure, thinks he's a big hero. The political subplot about the conflict Brooks almost caused, is tied up by means of on-screen text before the closing credits. The main plot also goes nowhere. I'm not sure what Brooks tried to do with this movie. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, and it doesn't work as a dark comedy nor as a satire. Unfortunately, with this movie, real-life Brooks ends up like on-screen Brooks: trying, but failing, to be funny. "Is that the joke?". I'll never know.

So what we have here is a movie with no real laughs and a premise that could be funny, but goes nowhere. Too bad, really, because I expected this movie to be much better. Not recommended to waste money on.