A talented cast founders in a farcical satire on religion which is intermittently humorous in-between some goofy happenings. A screwy scenario has Pierce Brosnan’s evangelist, Dan Day, a dapper reverend with the gift of gab, cajoling his congregation of Christian churchgoers. Planning to enlarge his parish, the pastor meets with an atheist scholar (Ed Harris) to discuss a book and accidentally shoots him. To make it look like suicide, he finds a scapegoat in gullible Carl Vanderveer (Greg Kinnear), a dimwitted, trusting, congregational follower who becomes Dan’s patsy for the crime.
Director- co-screenwriter George Ratliff’s spoof is based on Larry Beinhart’s novel. Pierce Brosnan is hammy as a charlatan preacher desiring Carl’s wife. Jennifer Connelly is Carl’s piously religious wife Gwen, and miscast Marisa Tomei hams it up as Honey Foster, a security guard who’s a weed smoking hippie in “Salvation Boulevard” which is in need of salvaging.
