Even without the “A musical play by” credit, it’s easy to recognize Heaven Ain’t Hard to Find’s stage roots. The film is little more than a poorly shot play, complete with the same staging that has all the actors facing one direction most of the time, and a Greek chorus of sort. It takes place almost entirely in a church hall, because the plot concerns its ownership, and because this purports to be a morality tale about Christian values. Except the film’s moral compass is disgustingly ass backwards—and it has nothing to do with the constant juvenile sex jokes that gave this otherwise family friendly movie its PG-13 rating.
The film doesn’t try to hide its opinion that those without faith are lower than those with. The plot concerns a dispute over what to do with a barren church with no pastor, let alone a congregation. The owner, a beautiful woman who inherited the deed from her father, the previous pastor, plans to let her new fiance use the land for a new building. The fiance is a seemingly good man who loves her and pampers her with wealth, moving her from a garage apartment filled with rats to a McMansion, so of course he has to turn out to be a bad guy. Sure enough, we discover the non-twist that he actually—gasp—doesn’t really believe in Jesus and plans to convert the church into a—double gasp—hip hop club.
Until the nonsensical third act where he suddenly morphs into a common thug (what successful entrepreneur would ever think it a good idea to obtain real estate at gun point?), his only sin seems to be having the good business sense to turn an abandoned building into a million dollar venture.
This is disturbing because the hero of the story is a convict who lists being educated and finding Jesus in prison as reasons to give him parole. He proves this, of course, by violently escaping prison, changing his name to work as a carpenter (GET IT?), and then goes on to seduce a woman while knowing full-well that she’s engaged to be married. All of this excused, though, because the man knows how to quote the bible. Also, at one point, he acts really offended when an ambiguously gay contractor hits on him, and insists that carpenters wear aprons, and wearing one doesn’t make him gay or lady-like, thus securing his identity as a male as the Lord would have wanted him.
The songs being either forgettable R&B or existing gospels, it’s not much of a musical, either. The hyperbolic antics of the three older black ladies who make up the Greek chorus is the closest the film comes to being entertaining. Mostly, it’s at best promoting obsolete values and at worst perpetuating self-image issues.
DVD Bonus Features
Two music videos: the theme song for the movie looks like it was shot impromptu by a camera phone in a rehearsal studio; the other a song about chasing tail by star Andre Pitre that is shot much more competently than the actual movie.
"Heaven Ain't Hard to Find" is on sale March 29, 2011 and is not rated. Christian, Drama. Directed by Neema Barnette. Written by Javon Johnson, Eugene McDaniel, Norris Muhammad. Starring Clifton Powell, Andre Pitre, Kym Whitley, Tasha Taylor.
