Desperate Church Wife
Whilst many ridicule TV movies I quite enjoy them, maybe it is their simplistic, down to basic nature which appeals because you can watch them without paying much attention. And to be honest whilst you half expect the characters to be thin and the acting to be ropey usually the basic ideas are good enough to make them worth watching. Unfortunately when it comes to "Gospel of Deceit" not only does it suffer from the expected issues it also suffers from a hysterically bad storyline which becomes so crazy that it is laughable.
For 20 years Emily (Alexandra Paul - Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York) has been loyal and supportive to her husband Ted (J.C. MacKenzie), the local vicar with ambitions of making it as a TV preacher even though he is more focussed on work than her. But then enters Luke (Corey Sevier - Student Seduction), a wanderer who oozes danger and sex who Ted hires as a handyman and puts up in the church basement. Before long Emily has fallen for the sexy young man and starts an affair but what Emily doesn't know is that Luke has served time and is being paid by someone to lead Emily astray.
I am going to tell you what the one good thing about "Gospel of Deceit" is and that it so quickly gets to the point where Emily has fallen for Luke's rough & ready, dangerously sexy charms that you know that can't be it, that there has to be more to fill in the next hour. But after that "Gospel of Deceit" is a movie which basically spirals out of control with a storyline which goes beyond being far fetched to the point that it wouldn't be out of place as an item on Jeremy Kyle. In fact it almost becomes a case of becoming a game as we wonder how far fetched it can get and it certainly should win some sort of award for having one of the most ridiculously convoluted storylines in movie history.
But the storyline is just the beginning of the problems and on top of this "Gospel of Deceit" is saddled with all the usual TV movie issues. So we have poorly written characters whose actions make no sense and then we have terrible dialogue especially during the final 10 minutes which perversely makes it entertaining for being so bad. Plus there is some unimaginative camera work and direction which means when things should be getting tense and dramatic it fails to get close.
Now I could say there is another reason to watch "Gospel of Deceit" and that is a shirtless Corey Sevier but in truth it is not much of a reason and his character Luke comes over as a cross between Rob Lowe and Colin Farrell. Aside from Sevier there is Alexandra Paul as Emily delivering the same sort of fraught performance that she has done before whilst J.C. MacKenzie as Ted must be thankful that most of the movie focuses on Luke and Emily.
What this all boils down to is that "Gospel of Deceit" is a bad movie even by TV movie standards and almost becomes so bad it is good especially when it comes to the ridiculously convoluted ending.
