Amazing Grace Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Amazing Grace Blu-ray Movie Review

Tyler Perry's Moms Mabley.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 31, 2015

Moms Mabley, like many a comedian, had a somewhat troubled early life, growing up in a poor family where she was one of evidently 16 children, and where she was sexually abused as a youngster, resulting in two unwanted pregnancies when she was just barely into her teen years (as horrifying as that may sound). The hardscrabble life didn’t deter Moms, born Loretta May Aiken, and she left home to set her own course, ultimately finding work on the vaudeville circuit which in those days was still alive and cooking. Though her persona was a combination of wide eyed naivete a la Mantan Moreland with a kind of steadfast crudeness which might be compared to (heaven help us) Tyler Perry’s Madea, Moms was a creature well ahead of her time. According to several published reports, she came out as a lesbian while still in her twenties, building quite a few of her stand up routines around issues of gender identity and sexual preference. That may sound like something that’s old hat (ironic, considering Moms’ preference for raggedy headwear), but keep in mind this revelation came in the relatively uptight 1920s! Moms, like later African American comedians such as Redd Foxx, soon became associated with “blue” material, and thus probably seemed to be well outside of the mainstream, at least the mainstream that catered primarily to Caucasian audiences. While she had a few scattered film appearances relatively early in her career (including The Emperor Jones with Paul Robeson), Mabley stuck mostly to the stage, both legitimate and vaudeville and other club circuits. Her star began to rise quite a bit in the 1960s with a slew of comedy albums, and then things took a decided turn toward that previously unavailable mainstream when she started cropping up on late sixties’ variety outings like The Ed Sullivan Show and (especially) The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Amazing Grace was ostensibly made to capitalize on this newfound (and hard won) fame, offering Moms an above the title starring vehicle that nonetheless provided little for the comedienne to do. The film is gently amusing some of the time, but more often tends to just kind of amble along without much energy, letting Moms mug or, Madea like, disparage the stupidity of those surrounding her.

Slappy White, who like Foxx and Moms herself also worked the so-called Chitlin’ Circuit, is actually on screen for quite a while before Moms makes her inimitable (if sometimes indecipherable) entrance. White plays retiring train conductor Forthwith WIlson. Wilson is looking forward to the train getting to Baltimore, which will be his “last stop.” The film gets off to a rather weird start, with Wilson’s nonstop yammering driving the passengers a little crazy, and with a really odd showdown between Wilson and one of the young male passengers.

Moms is soon on hand as one Grace, an elderly woman going to Baltimore herself. She’s holding up the train by indulging in never ending goodbyes to her large assembled family who’s come to see her off at the station. In the first of two interesting if ultimately pointless cameos, that’s Stepin Fetchit as the man in the purplish suit telling the conductor to cool his jets while Grace takes care of family business.

The supposed “surprise” partway into Amazing Grace is that Grace and Forthwith are kin, and they end up going back to their Baltimore home primed for an unknown future. When they get there, they discover that their neighbor’s house is adorned with festoons indicating he’s part of an upcoming Baltimore mayoral campaign. Grace’s interest is piqued and through an ensuing series of fairly silly machinations, ends up spying on the neighbors along with Wilson.

The neighbor, Welton J. Waters (Moses Gunn), isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and Grace’s nosiness soon uncovers a political conspiracy brewing which may in fact elect Waters but only because he’s a somewhat dunderheaded patsy. Grace of course sets out on a course to not just bring the slimy politicos to justice, but to elevate Waters himself in a kind of reverse Pygmalion scenario.

Amazing Grace tries to skewer a number of targets, some of them perhaps even relatively envelope pushing, at least for the time (as in a certain disparagement of so-called “Oreos”). But there’s a really lethargic and haphazard feel to much of Amazing Grace, as if writer-producer Matt Robinson (who also provided some of the song score) was simply waiting around for Moms to riff on any given subject or situation. Unfortunately Moms seems off her game as well, floundering in a film where she’s forced to resort to over the top mugging to extract what few laughs the film is capable of delivering.

Amazing Grace Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Amazing Grace is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. What's amazing about Amazing Grace is that a high definition master was ever prepared for such an obscure niche title. What's here is pretty standard looking, with elements revealing an above average amount of wear and tear, including quite a bit of dirt, dust, speckling and minus density. Colors are generally pretty decent looking if not overly vivid, though there's just a bit of fade giving a just slightly brown appearance some of the time. Detail is decent, increasing incrementally in some close-up material. It's obvious the film didn't have a big budget, and this Blu-ray reproduces the original's somewhat gritty, soft appearance reasonably well, all things considered. Clarity is surprisingly good throughout this presentation. There's quite a bit of footage of 1970s Baltimore, for those that are interested in such things. Grain resolves naturally, though occasionally spikes in some of what I assume was second unit footage in and around Baltimore.

Amazing Grace Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Amazing Grace features a solid sounding lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix. The film has quite a bit of music in it, all of which sounds clear if occasionally shallow. Dialogue is presented cleanly, though I can't really say "clearly," because Moms especially can be very difficult to make out at times. This is through no fault of the actual track, but simply her kind of bizarre idiolect. This is one Olive release that really could have benefitted from optional subtitles.

Amazing Grace Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc.

Amazing Grace Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A lot of Amazing Grace plays suspiciously like a Tyler Perry Madea outing, to the point that I have to wonder if a young Perry may have stumbled across the film at an impressionable age and imprinted it whole cloth into his artistic consciousness. There's some gentle humor to be found in dribs and drabs here, but again like a lot of Perry outings, Amazing Grace is awfully noisy at times instead of being hilarious. Technical merits are solid if nothing outstanding for those interested in the film.