Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

It has been a while since there’s been a film as disorganized as Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

The feature debut of writer/director Adamma Ebo struggles to expand her 2018 short by the same name about Atlanta megachurch pastor Lee-Curtis Childs (here played by Sterling K. Brown) trying to bounce back from an ambiguous scandal with help from his supportive wife Trinitie (Regina Hall) — and a documentary film crew chronicling their flawed exploits.

It’s an inspired idea and a subject seemingly ripe with jokes, but over the course of 100 painfully unfunny minutes, Ebo shows little understanding of mockumentary style on a visual or content level. Despite the wealth of targets to skewer within the Childs’ troubled empire, the filmmaker continually reaches for low-hanging fruit and still doesn't do much with it, leaning on mispronunciations of “amen" and characters stepping on chewing gum for big laughs, then letting her ill-equipped cast riff on the moments to headache-inducing ends.

Perhaps aware of her lack of preparation, Ebo awkwardly abandons documentary footage for “un-filmed" sequences without providing clues that she’s done so. All of a sudden, viewers are whisked to the Childs’ bedroom for an intimate scene and left wondering if the film crew is just off the mattress, filming the couple having sex.

Though Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. doesn’t completely shed its lazy attempts at humor, it turns increasingly serious and proves that its cast and crew are far better suited for dramatic moments. Brown is superb in a heartbreaking scene where Lee-Curtis reveals his skills at the pulpit, and likewise strong when he gets uncomfortably close with a member of the film crew that, in tandem with a climactic showdown with a former congregant, comes closest to revealing the nature of Lee-Curtis’ transgressions.

Ebo, however, is overly intent on her film being a satirical comedy, and puts Hall through one final demeaning wringer that’s so clearly meant to elicit guffaws. But like nearly all of the prior would-be gags, it falls embarrassingly flat.

Grade: D. Rated R. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande. Also available to stream via Peacock

(Photo: Steve Swisher/Focus Features)