Review of The Masked Saint (2016) by Sean H — 10 Jan 2016

Stop me if you've heard this one before... Southern Baptist pastor facing piles of debts to keep his church going returns to professional wrestling to make ends meet and on the side he moonlights as a masked vigilante. Yeah this movie happened. Based on a true story no less. I dont even know where to begin with all of the problems this movie has. I can't believe this was Roddy Piper's swan song.

One thing I know about professional wrestling from their commercials is that its always on the move. They don't have fights in the same city every night. But they do in this movie. One thing I know about a cop talking to his friend on the street is that a bad guy in a parked car cant possibly know that this means he's the masked vigilante. But it does in this movie. One thing I know about people who can't sing is that you don't get a new choir director and have them all turn into immensely talented singers overnight. But they do in this movie.

Chris "The Saint" Samuels gives up professional wrestling after having his leg destroyed by The Reaper in his final match. P Vince McMahon wannabe Nicky (Roddy Piper) assures Chris that The Reaper will never wrestle again. But of course that isn't true. Chris moves cross country to small town Michigan to take over a fading Baptist Church that's run by extras from a bad community theater group. The over bearing financier, the inept Deacon, the losing it choir director, and a fading congregation. Pastor Samuels comes in, fails miserably, gets taken to a wrestling match where he just happens to have his mask in his pocket, sees that The Reaper is still wrestling, gets back into the ring and defeats him tag team style and suddenly gets his mojo back. Occasionally, he sees bad things happening, dons the mask and helps the needy and neglected. Somehow, despite his identity being a secret, this leads to more people coming to church. This movie is terrible. Who gave them $3.5 million to make it is what I want to know.

It goes on from there towards the utterly predictable and God-awful climax. I'd rather watch paint dry. They should have cast Steven Tobolowsky as the deacon. The Reaper looked like The Crow if he were 7 feet tall and a beefcake. So bad.

This Queen laughed for a lot of the wrong reasons. I'm going to hell. 0 out of 5 stars.

1 rainbow - How did this get funded?

2 rainbows - You might find something of interest here but unlikely.

3 rainbows - Serves as a useful and entertaining enough distraction as a matinee.

4 rainbows - Stop reading this review and find a theater showing this film now!

5 rainbows - I'll need to find a spot for this in my Top 100 list. Absolutely flawless.