TV Movie Review: 'Sins of the Father'

Sins of the Father has no right to be this damn entertaining. This low budget, trashy, sloppy, TV movie mystery is in the tradition of daytime TV drama, brimming with forced melodramatics and a completely unintended sense of humor. I went into Sins of the Father prepared to roll my eyes and write a dismissive, mocking review of the movie, and came out wanting to tell the world to watch it.

Sins of the Father centers on a murder mystery in and around a Georgia church. The wife of a flamboyant pastor, Clarence played by the supremely charismatic Deitrick Haddon, is killed in front of her tawny suburban mansion by an unknown assailant. We don't really come to understand this right away, because the movie begins on a flashback regarding Clarence's son, Robert (Terayle Banks).

In flashback we see a garage and a large woman standing over a small boy, beating him with a belt. The woman is Karen (Angela Davis), the preacher's wife. A quick flash and we see Karen dead on the ground. These flashes are coming courtesy of the reeling mind of Robert who has been picked up for questioning in his step-mother's death.

Before the plot can kick in, we are introduced to Robert's real mother, Jennifer (Brandi Cohen). Jennifer is a lot to unpack. I don't want to spoil anything of her character, because it is all so very juicy, but let me tell you, this part of the plot goes absolutely nowhere, and yet I was living for every single detail of it. Jennifer gets a big introduction, and her part of the story is beefy and then she's gone until the end of the movie.

The real meat of the story is in the investigation of the murder. The completely incredible A.J. Johnson plays Detective Phylicia Richardson, and her performance is hypnotically weird. Rather than dress the part of a professional detective, Richardson is dressed like that mom who dresses like her daughter in a vain attempt to stay young. And she pulls it off.

Richardson is aggressively strange. As she begins to interview Robert about the murder, she obsesses over snacks and appears ready to divert to any topic other than the corpse at hand. I was gripping for a train wreck of a performance after her first scene, but somehow, I came to really love her quirks. Truly, I was won over by how offbeat she is. I would watch a Detective Phylicia Richardson TV show on a regular basis, that's how entertaining A.J. Johnson is in this role.

Anchoring the movie is Terayle Hill as Robert. You know how strange it is when a genuinely talented actor appears on a soap opera? That's what it is like with Hill in Sins of the Father. His actual acting brings a whole other vibe to the movie that is at once at odds with the trashy nature of the low budget TV movie aesthetic, and yet absolutely perfect for it.

I really loved his silence, his stoicism has a particular magnetism. Robert's backstory involves growing up with a debilitating illness and having been terribly abused, and you can see that Hill has done some homework on kids with deeply traumatic backgrounds. He has an authenticity to his longings and desires, and especially his guilt. The mixture of shame and mistrust is palpable, and I loved how Detective Richardson's weirdness is actually the perfect way to get through to someone like him.

Let's be real now, the movie is low budget and trashy. It deals in big broad strokes for the most part, and it is sloppy as all get out with the odd introductions of characters and snatches of non-sequitur, almost nonsense dialogue. But, this is really good trash. This is cheesy, fun trash. It's trash that doesn't even realize how trashy it is.

There is an earnestness to the campy, trampy essence of Sins of the Father, and that makes the movie that much more irresistible. Sins of the Father is the kind of movie that pairs well with a group of good friends, a bottle of cheap wine, and a pizza. It's the kind of movie you talk back to in order to mock it and to scold it, and then to laugh at it.

But the greatest thrill comes at the end when you find yourself fully won over by Sins of the Father. I was completely in on this movie by the end. I was won over by Hill's Robert, and I felt genuine feelings for him by the end. I was wildly entertained by Haddon's Clarence who has the magnetism of a tall Katt Williams. And I was especially won over by A.J. Johnson who goes into business for herself, and creates an indelible character in the midst of a script that I can only imagine offered a stock, off the shelf quality character.

So much of Detective Richardson, from her unusual wardrobe to her vocal affectations, and her incredible intelligence had to have come from Johnson. I imagine she took the role, and then just went into business for herself, giving the character a makeover that made her more interesting to play than some buttoned up professional.

Whatever the case, it worked on me. I had super low expectations for Sins of the Father, and I came out a convert to its trashy goodness. This movie is fun and strange, and at times genuinely moving. None of these elements should work together, but they do. A movie should not be going in so many strange directions at once, but Sins of the Father does and I was all in for it.

Sins of the Father debuts on Sunday, July seventh on TV One.

P.S. Hey, TV One, do the world a favor and start producing Detective Phylicia Richardson TV movie one offs. She's a gold mine waiting to be tapped.