Not Easily Broken/Faith Like Potatoes (Sony DVDs)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Features: D

 

 

A very predictable and almost condescending series of “faith-based” films with limited theatrical potential (usually TV movies anyhow) continue to be made and there is supposedly a market for them, but they are the most regressive series of productions I have ever seen and (save Tyler Perry) tend to be almost the same film with the same singular dogmatic answer that does not work.  Faith Like Potatoes takes place in South Africa, while Not Easily Broken is a T.D. Jakes attempt to be Tyler Perry that fails miserably.

 

Potatoes is about a farmer (based on a true story that never seems true) who can only garden correctly when he finds faith, while Broken is a tale about how marriage is the “only” (though it really is not) the answer for a happier future for male/female relationships and how it should be an indestructible institution.  The latter has other problematic implications (homophobia, issues with women) we will not entertain, but is the more insidious of the two.  Both are bombs speaking to an extreme “already converted” crowd save those from the less extreme part of that crowd who have been conned.  Skip both.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on each at least looks decent with some good color and detail throughout, but the Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on both are on the weak side, dialogue-based and nothing to write home about.  Extras include making of featurettes on both, deleted scenes on Broken and God’s Farmer: The Angus Buchanan Story featurette on Potatoes.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo