Many decades ago Johnny Vegas was training to enter the priesthood. After 18 months he chucked it in and headed down a career path that has seen him become a popular comedian in the UK with a penchant for gluttony, drinking, smoking and adult entertainment. In this film, Johnny Vegas heads out to Colorado to look into the evangelistic Christian movements in the US. With the political power they hold and the appearance of happiness and contentment, Vegas meets with various groups and reads books to find out more.
At the start of this film I had my doubts. I don't mean about God or anything like that, but just that although the voice-over suggested that the film was going to be an investigation, the tone of the start and the selection of Vegas suggested that minds had already been made up and that this was going to be Vegas ripping the p1ss out of Christians. Maybe this was the point of the film but actually it does turn out to be slightly better than what I feared. Vegas does seem to be actually thinking about himself and his life at points and here and there seems genuinely affected by some of the things that he sees in the lives of others. This makes the film more interesting because I did get the impression that Vegas was maybe actually on a journey.
Of course he was never really going to have a road to Damascus moment right here in the night slot of channel 4, but it still improves the film. Sadly they don't build around this aspect because the makers remember that they got Vegas for his comedy value, so any moment where he is on form is played out more than moments of reflection. This side is entertaining as well if, like me, you do enjoy Vegas and given that I've only seen him working with the ITV Digital monkey recently, it was nice to see him doing his quips again.
Overall though the film is nothing special and ends with no real conclusions or surprises. It is engaging at times to see Vegas thinking out loud or to hear him joking around but the film doesn't build on this. I'm probably wrong but it did come over like the makers had expected the film to be a certain thing and when it varied slightly from that, they weren't able to do anything with it. Distracting "investigation" with some value but not much.
At the start of this film I had my doubts. I don't mean about God or anything like that, but just that although the voice-over suggested that the film was going to be an investigation, the tone of the start and the selection of Vegas suggested that minds had already been made up and that this was going to be Vegas ripping the p1ss out of Christians. Maybe this was the point of the film but actually it does turn out to be slightly better than what I feared. Vegas does seem to be actually thinking about himself and his life at points and here and there seems genuinely affected by some of the things that he sees in the lives of others. This makes the film more interesting because I did get the impression that Vegas was maybe actually on a journey.
Of course he was never really going to have a road to Damascus moment right here in the night slot of channel 4, but it still improves the film. Sadly they don't build around this aspect because the makers remember that they got Vegas for his comedy value, so any moment where he is on form is played out more than moments of reflection. This side is entertaining as well if, like me, you do enjoy Vegas and given that I've only seen him working with the ITV Digital monkey recently, it was nice to see him doing his quips again.
Overall though the film is nothing special and ends with no real conclusions or surprises. It is engaging at times to see Vegas thinking out loud or to hear him joking around but the film doesn't build on this. I'm probably wrong but it did come over like the makers had expected the film to be a certain thing and when it varied slightly from that, they weren't able to do anything with it. Distracting "investigation" with some value but not much.