September | 2022 | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

Sterling K Brown is arguably, mainly based on his part on “This is Us” one of the best television actors we have ever seen. Unfortunately, at least so far, all of his attempts to parlay his huge television success have failed into making a movie that shows his great acting talent. The reason for this, as far as I have seen, is his choosing horrible parts in movies. His latest choice “Honk for Jesus: Save Your Soul”, where he plays Lee-Curtis Childs an evangelist, seems to be his worse choice yet as this movie is both boring and very bad.

It is hard to believe that any known actor could read a script this bad and still accept this role – regardless of how much money they were being paid. For someone who is as good an actor as Brown, he would be better off turning down roles until something great came his way – rather that continuing the same mistake of taking bad parts in movies. Then if no great dramatic movie role ever comes around, just stick with making television shows. There are rumors that Brown may reprise his role as Randall Pearson from This is US to play the President of the United States, working with the great writer Aaron Sorkin to make a “West Wing” like series. As long as the quality is there, it should not matter whether someone as good as Sterling K Brown is making a movie or a television show.

As far as this bad movie, Regina Hall plays Childs wife Trinitie Childs, and this entire story seems to be some kind of an attempted-Tammy Faye-Jim Baker-comedy-parody, that mostly does not work. There are many scenes where the actors are looking into the camera, trying to be funny, all of them fail. There is an inexplicable scene where Regina Hall has a long speech where she is wearing white face – what were they thinking there?

For me the only good way to see a movie this bad is on streaming using the Peacock service when you can save most of the cost of a movie ticket and see this online. This is a good idea not only for the savings but for the ability to skip past so many bad scenes and bad dialogue.

The IMDB ratings for this movie are a correct 5.1, and the audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are also accurate at 26%. For some insane reason the critics are giving this mess a 74% – which once again, makes absolutely no sense. This film is a very solid miss at all costs. Honk for Jesus and save your Money. Watch a documentary about Jim and Tammy Faye Baker instead.

What is the definition of a Good Boss? Someone who walks a very fine line between showing empathy and humanity for the people who work for him and is also someone who realizes that the overall good and financial health of the company is the most important thing?

The main idea behind of the new movie “The Good Boss”, starring Javier Bardem, is that trying to be every employee’s best friend, or their father will backfire for many reasons – starting with trying to absorb all of your problems, the inevitable issues with the company and the employee’s problem. This very soon becomes overwhelming and eventually bleeds into the health and well being of the company. Then, if the company fails, everybody loses their jobs after the company goes bankrupt. Being the boss over many people in most cases can be a lose-lose proposition of making the decisions and ultimate responsibility all the more challenging. This is why being a great boss will always be a very fine line between being in charge first and being a human being with empathy towards others you employ second.

This foreign film with subtitles is probably the only movie I have ever seen that completely focuses on the boss of a company – in this case a company that builds very accurate mechanical and electronic industrial scales. Blanco, played by Bardem throughout this very well told story, is constantly being attacked by one problem with an employee (one who is about to get divorced) and another fired employee who is protesting the company with a megaphone and posters outside the entrance to the factory. Making matters worse is Blanco himself making mistakes including having an affair with an intern and another one borne out of total desperation.

This film does a great job showing Blanco’s increasing frantic attempts to resolve all of these problems before a major inspection of the factory happens and his company receives a prestigious award. Several of his decisions are forced on him for the good of the company and others to save himself. The acting and the screenplay are both great throughout these engrossing 2 hours.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for The Good Boss are a very high 92% and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this film.