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Accomplished actor Ed Norton adds another string to his bow
with Keeping the Faith which is his first film as a director.
The result is an interesting, but overlong, romantic comedy
that seems to mostly be carried by the sheer charm of its stars.
Ben Stiller stars as Jake Schram, a young up and coming New
York neighbourhood rabbi, while his childhood buddy Brian Finn
(Norton) is a catholic priest in the same district. The main
thing that occupies their lives is convincing their respective
religious elders of the merits of their modern stand up comedy
styles in the pulpit. The other thing that keeps them busy is
setting up their multi-demoninational karaoke lounge. As you
can probably guess, the stage is ripe for plenty of jokes referring
to the various distinctive differences between these religions.
This happy existence is turned upside down with the arrival
of their other childhood friend Anna Reilly (Jenna Elfman) who
has now become a glamorously high powered business woman. Eventually
this adds a predictable 'love triangle' to the religious conflicts
and tests their longstanding friendship.
The stars are all great. Stiller has a likeable self deprecating
style and replays the sensitive yet bumbling romantic characters
that he has previusly shown in There's Something About Mary
and Mystery Men. Norton is good as ever in quite a subtle role,
possibly a consciously modest choice given his role as director.
Elfman is a surprising revelation balancing the two sides of
her power dressing business woman's personality and showing
that she is comfortable in the transition from TV to the big
screen.
There are plenty of funny moments as well, especially a star
turn from Ken Leung as a hilarious karaoke salesman. However,
Keeping the Faith is very noticeably too long and loses its
way in its third quarter. I actually looked at my watch during
this film which is never a good sign. In addition, I often tired
of the continual religious culture clash jokes (there is only
so much mileage you can get out of a congregation's efforts
to marry off its rabbi). A final fatal flaw in this film is
that I did not really care how the central love triangle was
resolved. The reality was that everyone was so nice to each
that you just knew that it was going to work out amicably somehow.
Overall, a harmlessly humorous movie, with some very likeable
performances, but somehow lacking a spark.
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