The Deliverance: A Mess-terpiece? SPOILERS

you are giving somebody who got saved yesterday maybe even earlier today but it was for sure within the last 24 to 48 hours you're giving somebody who just got saved a tube of oil and saying you gonna cast this demon out because I'm about to lay over here and die what's up y'all so today I'm going to be reviewing the movie the new le Daniels joint called the Deliverance they dropped on Netflix on August 30th this one got a heavy hitting cast y'all Glenn Close Andre day Mo'Nique Caleb mlin Anana Ellis Taylor you got some people who if they're given something to work with can create a masterpiece so what did Lee Daniels do with this Powerhouse cast you want to know what I think about this movie then let's go when I first learned about this movie I knew I had to review it simply because it's inspired by true events and those true events happened in the city that I grew up in and and the family that was involved with these true events is a family that I know the mother of that or the grandmother in that family was my nanny for a short time when in my youth so I know the people the story was outrageous is uh a family that included a mother her three children and the grandmother moved into a home and began to experience increasingly paranormal uh events going on in this house and it was witnessed by many people if you want to know more about that family from Gary Indiana I'm G put a link here that will uh take you to a podcast that I did about the episode years ago years ago so instead of Gary Indiana this one is taking place in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 2011 so they basically swapped one Ste town for another one now we have three children that are part of the story The Dre is being played by Anthony B Jenkins then we got Nate the older son he is being played by Caleb mlin the daughter Shante is being played by Demi Singleton and of course ebony is the mother in this family and she is being played by Andre day and then the grandmother um is being is named baa and she is being played by Glenn Close and look man the kids actually the entire cast did pretty good with what they were given but this movie to me has some problems first and foremost we don't know who we are supposed to be rooting for of course we're gonna root for the kids we don't want anything to happen to the children but the relationship between the adults in this film it's like who is supposed to be the good guy who's supposed to be the bad guy the entire thing jumps off at with an aggressive conversation between Glenn CLA mother and her daughter Andre day and I'm like okay this is taking me out of the movie because why do we have to be so aggressive right off the bat we were given bite-sized pieces of why this family might be dysfunctional but we weren't shown an awful lot this went on throughout most of the movie that any adult in this movie especially adult women were very catty and very [ __ ] towards one another and it makes me feel like this is part of a Trope playing into the Trope that women cannot have functional relationships then we have Glen Close a white woman that in in and of itself is not a problem but when it's time to make one of them good and the other one bad we fall into another familiar Trope which is the white woman being the one who is the voice of reason there are lot of reasons why that would be the case in this movie um the mother is obviously going through uh chemotherapy for cancer she's having cancer treatments and even though she has this contentious relationship with her daughter we are to believe maybe that she has come to be a better person since her cancer diagnosis because her daughter keeps throwing up in her face how bad of a mother she was when there are examples of the Andre day character ebony being being a terrible mother to her children besides the fact that she is an alcoholic she is very abusive to her children extremely uh verbally abusive and physically abusive in which case we're we we have to wonder why are we supposed to even care what happens to this woman we're more concerned about what happens with the children and I know there are families somewhere out there that live like this but it's so disappointing this is what Lee Daniels keeps choosing to depict because one of the more popular movies in fact of critically acclaimed movie that I enjoyed was precious that Lee Daniels directed and in that movie it was the exact same thing but that movie stayed very faithful to the book that it was uh it was based upon which was a book called push if I remember correctly I read that book that's what made me very interested in watching the movie Precious and he stayed kind of faithful to the book this movie is not staying faithful at all to the events that inspired it and that bothers me because when you could have stayed true to the events that inspired it you deviated and you made this family appear to be this big freaking dysfunctional mess and it didn't have to be that way it's almost Insidious to to Ray swap the mother the grandmother of the children um and then try to make her be the voice of reason in that household because we could have cast Monique as Andre day's Mother and stayed faithful to the story that you in that were that you were inspired by and it would have made more sense this was it looks like to me an example of trying to make the white woman the Savior um I could be reading too much into it but this is the way I'm looking at it this is the lens I'm watching it from now it's almost worth it to see Glenn CL doing a sew in those wigs that she was wearing and the Wardrobe of her because of course a lot of black communities will have a white woman who has uh been in in the community for so long that she begins to take on the cultural aspects of the community grandma has cancer and she's going down to chemotherapy and all these black men in the hood are are checking for now grandma is 70 plus we know this because Glenn Close to 70 plus right but and that's not for me to say being ages like she still can't be sexy because of course she can but every black man in the hood wants this white woman now she goes into have her chemotherapy and so this is such an unnecessary scene to me it is just again it seems like just another way to make black women look caddy she goes in to have her chemotherapy and Omar EPS is in this movie Omar EPS is playing a character named Melvin and he is like the tech that is helping with the chemotherapy I don't know what they called but he is there and he's helping to administer her chemo and she flirting with him yeah she want her some Melvin right and Melvin is kind of reciprocating this attention but then all these people are in here having chemo or dialysis or whatever they having they so concerned about the fact that Melvin and and Bera are flirting with one another being all caddy she come in here look at her come in here with her shirt all down and whoopy woo and I'm like who would who would care we all in here trying to be survivors and you mean to tell me that these black women got to be sitting in here whispering and gossiping amongst one another because she flirting with this with this younger man maybe I just am am surrounded by better people or maybe I've just never seen it but it's happening all around me but that's just not realistic and it once again plays into the Trope that black women are aggressive and disagreeable I don't know why we even needed Omar EPS to be the actor behind the character of Melvin because we got him on screen for about 5 to seven maybe five to seven minutes the next time we see melv is he's at berta's granddaughter's birthday party which I'm like why the hell is he here but he was there so he's there and he and Bera evidently hook up and he leaves was like call you tomorrow she like yeah and that's it we don't see Omar apps anymore he's gone so I I don't know why we needed him to be the actor behind that character but it's always nice to see Omar EPS on screen and like I said the interactions between the adults in this film are so way over the top it it it doesn't look realistic at all for instance we I told you Mo'Nique is in the film Mo'Nique comes in she's playing a casew worker in this one and she might as well came in twirling her mustache she came in so hot the way that she and Andre day's character ebony interacting with one another it might as well been a cartoon the adults were very cartoonish and for this to be a horror movie I think that uh Lee Daniels leaned far too much into using exposition to get us from one scene to the next you know horror it's almost like we need to see some of this stuff but the horror didn't come into this movie until we got like 38 minutes in Monique and um and Andre day's characters sit together and describe how we are in the situation that we're in with this family why the case worker is there um what happened to the father of the children a lot of things were discovered and laid out through Exposition and while that might be okay in a more talkie film this is a horror film and we sit through literally we got to 38 minutes before anything anything that dealt with horror came into the picture one moment thought we were supposed to kind of infer that the the dysfunction in this family began when they moved into this house that had been possessed by this demon but then with the introduction of Monique's character we see that this is a a cycle this is things that have been going on for a long time so why do I care about this mother who we have seen hitting her children we have seen um abusing them verbally we have seen her abusing other kids in the neighborhood and being abusive to her mother even though she's paying for her mother's chemotherapy um sessions out of her pocket which is a a way to show that you love your mother their interactions are so very disrespectful and I just I don't know what Lee Daniels want us to to believe does he want us to believe that the house is making them that way then why did they why were they already dysfunctional and if if we're believing that they're just a dysfunctional family why do we we care about Andre day's character ebony why do we care about her these characters have very little nuance and I don't think that it's just being acted that way I think it was written that way and I really wanted more for this this cast because got a wonderful cast of actors it's just that the the script is not allowing them to flex the way that they we know that they can then there's the character played by Anan Ellis her name is Bernice and she is an apostle and she has history with this house because way back in the 90s a family that went to her church was attacked by this same demon it had it attached itself to the son of their household and you know it ended up making them uh off the entire family now we got some pretty laughable moments and I know it was not supposed to be laughable wasn't supposed to be funny but the the the head getting cut off and if you watched the movie you're going to know what I'm talking about there there was a the head that had been severed in the a flashback scene I almost fell out my [ __ ] chair I almost fell out of my chair that was so freaking hilarious and again this is not me trying to beat up on Lee Daniels he just made some choices he made some choices but that was a good one that was funny so anywh who andan Ellis's character is trying to to gain this family's trust that she knows that something is going on in this house by stalking them yeah she stalked them she stalked them for for days before she came out and and uh contacted Ebony and told her hey I'm Bernice and I know exactly what's going on in your home huh who okay and then there's a scene when Monique comes back to the house because she's checking on the kids because again she's the DCS case worker she comes back to the house to checks on the kid and the close character Bera comes down and chases her off with a baseball bat and the reason why she chases him off her off with the baseball bat is because she's concerned that they gonna take the kids and I'm like isn't that a good way to get your kids taken by threatening the DCS casew worker with a bat so that didn't make sense I don't there's a lot about this movie that don't make sense now we do learn that berda has given her life to God she's been um going to church since her cancer diagnosis she kind of wants the children to go with her but ebony is like no that's you know we ain't doing that we ain't going there and but it's always with a bunch of cursing and calling each other [ __ ] they threaten each other and call each other [ __ ] more than anything else in this movie it's a lot of [ __ ] calling in this movie but anywh who she goes to church now and so we know that she's saved she puts a crossup on the wall ebony has an issue with that and then B unceremoniously gets killed in the movie like it's unceremonious one of the kids and I believe it was Dre the youngest kid who is the the show stealer of this movie by the way if I had to pick one person who is completely SE still in scenes it's him because when he goes into blank mode he gets this vacant stare in his face and he got that down to a science who ever taught him how to look like he's looking through you taught him well because he does it with uh with the expertise that only a real possessed person could have after Bera gets killed the demon ramps up his his activity um the children end up the children end up U being hospitalized for various afflictions and and ways that this demon is manifesting his possession over them uh ebony also ends up in being being institutionalized overnight because for her own safety and the safety of her children and that's when she finds out that her kids are being taken and when these kids get taken and they're all separate in all different places the Demonic activity within the children just ramps up and all kinds of crazy stuff happens but the focal point is the younger son Dre Dre is the one who's possessed that demon is then reaching out and and um affect ing his siblings his older siblings now eony wants to work with with uh Bernice I mean it ain't no question something going on with these kids so Bernice is like you know I lost the last time against this demon but this time I got you I got it she's only the savior in this movie because she's selling this religious fantasy to Ebony and I know there are some people who are going to be upset with me for saying a religious fantasy but that's what it is it's a fantasy only because Bernice cannot defeat the spirit even though she says in her first meeting with ebony that if you touch a body in the Name of Christ the demons have to run except even with the first family she attempted to help in the Name of Christ the demon was too powerful for her and she lost that entire family you know now here she is about to face off against another demon in fact the same freaking demon she's about to face off against the same demon in the Name of Christ she has uh gotten ebony to get saved so now her and Ebony have kidnapped Dre from the hospital so that they can perform this deliverance and they get her get him to the house of the church or wherever the heck this was and they start doing this deliverance and once again Bernice gets her butt kicked by this demon so I'm like look if you are trying to sell to me that all I have to say is something in in in the name of Jesus lay my hands on this child and cast out this demon but then you can't do it why should I continue to believe that this is the only way that's gonna work so in what had to be one of the most hilarious sequences of this movie The Demon gets the upper hand on Bernice starts pulling a yank her by her hair across the floor and the way her hair the way her hair pulled up when she got yanked across the floor the demon just beat her ass but the the hair thing that almost killed me but the only thing that was funnier than that is Bernice lay on the floor after she got her ass beat by this demon and Ebony coming down to check on her and she say ebony I'm dying this script is [ __ ] laughable e I'm dying so that she gives the holy oil to Ebony and was like you just can't be afraid I was I had fear you can't be afraid you are giving somebody who got saved yesterday maybe even earlier today but it was for sure within the last 24 to 48 hours you're giving somebody who just got saved a tube of oil and saying you gonna cast this demon out because I'm about to lay over here and die so eony does she goes and she faces off against the this demon now what I did like about this sequence is that you know the demon had showed up as her mother the demon had showed up as her son demon had showed up in all of these different various forms but in this final battle between eony and the demon that the demon shows up as ebony so now Ebony is basically having to fight herself and I thought and I hope that this is what I should have taken from this but I thought this has been it the whole time these kids are fighting not against the literal devil but against their mother's demons and she saw herself as the devil because she's been the devil the entire film towards his children in one way or another she had to fight herself for the best interest of her children and the darker self had gained the upper hand was about to take her out and she started seeing flashes of her children and good times that they had together even though let me tell you they were few and far between in this movie I'm I'm not going to lie she started to see the good times that she was having with her children and then all of a sudden she gets all this Bible knowledge she starts quoting scripture which you could say is just like the power of God but how you quoting scripture today when you got saved yesterday and the day before yesterday you didn't even want the cross up in your house your mama didn't start going to church and and and being a Believer until she got cancer so now all of a sudden you have got the authority over this demon to cast it out and she began speaking in tongues and I always have an issue with people speaking in tongues because that is what the apostles did in the Bible in order to preach the good news to other cultures there should always be somebody present who understands what the speaker of tongues is saying it's biblical it's uh 1 Corinthians 14:22 speaking in tongues is for unbelievers to hear the gospel in their own language uh the the verse says uh in one translation of the Bible it says so you see that speaking in tongues is a sign not for believers but for unbelievers prophecy however is for the benefit of Believers not unbelievers so there is a precedent for speaking in tongues you shouldn't stop people from speaking in tongues but it's supposed to be for a reason and it gets used like this was just Andre day just she she started freestyling she just went off we just let her go because she was speaking in tongues if nobody on that set understood what Andre day was saying something else was present on that set and it wasn't it it it was something uh dark put it like that and after ebony defeats this demon which is her defeating her own demons uh she vows to get her family back because Mo'Nique Mo'Nique has seen some things by this point Mo'Nique is Cynthia right so Cynthia was at the hospital while uh the kids were going through their little episodes with this demon and she witnessed and this is something that truly happened in the real events that this was inspired by she witnessed that child the youngest one walk up the wall and then come back down in the original story in the actual story that is said to have happened it it was sad to have happened at a hospital with a social worker and a nurse present where one of the kids walked up the wall flipped over and then came back down landing on his feet so that was the only thing that was like kind of faithfully adapted with this movie Once Mo'Nique saw that she became a kind of a Believer and she started trying to instead of working against ebony she started kind of working with her trying to help her get her kids back so at the end of this movie eony gets her children back and she and their father have made a a decision to try to work it out and get back together the end and I'm like so we made the white woman the hero we made the church the hero and then we're now instead of this woman you know standing on her own two feet now she got to get back with it everything ain't right till she gets back with this man I'm not saying that that is a bad thing in reality but in this movie it just doesn't seem believable none of nothing about the movie seems believable for it to be inspired by a true story the true story was actually very unbelievable right but for this to be inspired by a true story it just doesn't have any ring of Truth any ring of possibility any ring of it being plausible that these things will happen in the manner in which they happen I think this movie in essence was not good in fact did not like it at all I couldn't take any parts of it seriously I know that these actors and that director really worked hard to get this movie out in in the public and to tell this story in in their own unique ways but it just wasn't good for me there was nothing about it that I liked and I mean except for the kids kid actors did all right uh Caleb mlin they didn't give him much uh Demi Singleton she didn't get much the star of this show was Anthony B Jenkins as uh Andre he he was given enough to do and what he did with it was so fantastic he is the standout of this movie like I said some of these the some of the things the tropes that were in the movie were funny I got a good chuckle but if you're looking for a horror movie and you want to be scared there's nothing to see here so if you have watched if you've watched the Deliverance let me know how you felt about this movie make me understand if you liked it make me understand what about it you liked down in the comments below I'd like to thank you for joining me today and I will see you in the next one peace