Danny Glover has returned to the Deep South. In 1984, he made a memorable impression as Moze in Robert Benton’s Waxahachie-set Places in the Heart, accompanying Sally Fields’ Oscar-winning performance. The next year, he went Deeper South, acting opposite Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.

Now he’s in Deeper Yet in John Sayles’ low-budget blues-rock-roots drama Honeydripper, and it feels like we’ve seen this performance before—just dressed up in bigger-budget production designs. Like Moze, Honeydripper’s Tyrone Purvis is a bit of a shambling handyman (who also happens to play a mean piano); like Purple’s Albert, he’s a juke-joint devotee who’s in mismatched conflict with his more spiritually-oriented Better Half.

There’s a tent revival in town, you see, and Delilah is “between churches,” trying to decide if God is calling her to leave her God-dissing husband behind. Tyrone, meanwhile, is on the verge of losing his two-bit roadhouse, and is betting the farm on One Big Night featuring an appearance by new music sensation Guitar Sam to save the club. “My head’s spinnin’ and I’m goin’ down real slow,” he sings while his fingers tickle the ivories at The Honeydripper.

It’s all about salvation, you see. As Delilah muses that “maybe it’s too late” for her to connect with God’s purpose, Tyrone gets his own mystical advice. “You’re gonna hafta save your own self,” intones the local blind bluesman. And that gets tougher as Tyrone’s easy-out plan starts falling apart, his old-time house blues-singer Bertha Mae can’t draw the younger crowd, the local sheriff starts horning in on Tyrone’s business, and Guitar Sam’s arrival becomes less and less certain. Enter a young itinerant musician with something new… an electronic guitar and a home-made amp. Will Sonny and the New Music save the day?

Where Spielberg envisioned a wacky celebratory union between congregation and juke, though, Sayles has no such monkey business in mind. He’s also not interested in Benton’s rather mystical view of the church’s role in a southern community; and he’s sure not adopting the viewpoint taken by Denzel Washington in his recent The Great Debaters, fully-integrated view of faith and education was a philosophic starting place. No, Honeydripper takes a line which insists that “there ain’t no in between.” Delilah is going to have to choose, and so is Tyrone. And ultimately it’s about following God’s leading, not man’s.

That’s the upside to Honeydripper; sadly, there’s a good bit of downside, too—much as I might not like to admit such a thing of a John Sayles film. He’s hit some solid home runs in his career, but this is not one of them.

Principally, there’s precious little music in film whose reason for being is a celebration of rock’s birth from its southern blues roots. Sure, we get an a capella snippet of “The Midnight Special,” which would later be a big hit for Creedence Clearwater; but otherwise, there’s more talk about music than there is hearing—or playing. And by the time we get to the night of the Big Show, credulity is stretched as far as Sonny’s fifty-foot patchcord. When guns and knives are eventually drawn, they’re dramatic complications that are impossible to take seriously. It’s like Lone Star dropped into the middle of The Brother From Another Planet.

Glover’s performance is especially poorly directed. Whether he’s casually tapping away at invisible tacks on a poster in front of the club or aimlessly hammering together planks with nails that will never stay in, he too often seems to be taking the direction “Just do something with your hands!” Yaya DaCosta, as Tyrone’s daughter China Doll (yes, those are the names), fares little better as she absent-mindedly cooks grits or wanders around behind the bar looking for hair straightener.

Sayles also pulls out some of the hoariest conventions in the genre, including the so-called Magical Negro who mystically pops in and out of scenes whenever guidance or sage advice is needed. When Bertha Mae hears a train whistle as she walks up the steps to her porch, morosely muttering, “That’s a terrible noise,” it’s almost enough to make you cringe.

Still, I’d hate to convey that the impression that this is a horrible film; it’s not. A poor John Sayles film is still a good bit more entertaining than average work by other filmmakers.

Just don’t expect too much of Honeydripper. There are sweeter concoctions on the shelf—particularly on the one labeled Sayles—but I’ve quaffed much bitterer than this, too.

Honeydripper is rated PG-13 for “brief violence and some suggestive material.” Well, not all that suggestive. I think I’d lean more toward a PG with this film. For younger audiences who haven’t seen many films about the old Deep South, this one might be intriguing—and it’s fairly suitable for them, too, if likely far too slow.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Greg attended a promotional screening of Honeydripper.