Don Verdean is a satirical film about a seemingly well-meaning but fraudulent biblical archaeologist who "finds" artifacts in Israel that confirm biblical stories and reassure the faithful. But he's running short of funding so he connects with an evangelical preacher from a large and prosperous church who commits to bankrolling him in his "digs" in the Holy Land in exchange for his church making the initial presentation of the "archaeologist's" discoveries. The preacher is a (literally) born-again Christian who, in a previous preacher-life, was killed in a car crash with his hooker girl friend, but in his current manifestation presides over what appears to be a megachurch and has married his hooker girl friend. The first "find" our archaeologist brings back to the preacher is the pillar of salt remains of Lot's wife.....with a penis. The church is scandalized until our imaginative "archaeologist" tells them that Lot's wife was a hermaphrodite which was just as deserving of a hellish doom as the sodomites deserved. I think you readers get the picture by now.
There were a number of genuinely funny lines in the film, and it's quite entertaining to watch. The preacher and his reformed hooker-wife get to play very amusing roles, and they're quite good in them. Where the film goes off the track, so to speak, is about half way through when the plot gets a little too unwieldy and a little too silly. There's a second preacher who has a strong rivalry with our initial preacher, and that conflict does not seem to add to the story or to the satire, even though he's the only one who wants these "finds" carbon-dated. For me, the humor level fell off during the latter half of the film.
The film seems to hint that some discoveries in biblical archaeology may be misused as religious idolatry, and we see both church members and religious pilgrims rhapsodizing over the physical remains of Lot's wife and Goliath's skull. I wonder if the film would have had a tighter focus and a more streamlined presentation if the satire of religious idolatry was emphasized with more precision, and with more conflict among the believers in Don Verdean. Are these folks gullible because they want confirmation of scripture or do they need a physical, tangible object to bolster their faith? Didn't Paul say: "the things which are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal."
There were a number of genuinely funny lines in the film, and it's quite entertaining to watch. The preacher and his reformed hooker-wife get to play very amusing roles, and they're quite good in them. Where the film goes off the track, so to speak, is about half way through when the plot gets a little too unwieldy and a little too silly. There's a second preacher who has a strong rivalry with our initial preacher, and that conflict does not seem to add to the story or to the satire, even though he's the only one who wants these "finds" carbon-dated. For me, the humor level fell off during the latter half of the film.
The film seems to hint that some discoveries in biblical archaeology may be misused as religious idolatry, and we see both church members and religious pilgrims rhapsodizing over the physical remains of Lot's wife and Goliath's skull. I wonder if the film would have had a tighter focus and a more streamlined presentation if the satire of religious idolatry was emphasized with more precision, and with more conflict among the believers in Don Verdean. Are these folks gullible because they want confirmation of scripture or do they need a physical, tangible object to bolster their faith? Didn't Paul say: "the things which are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal."