Suits on the Loose
Grade: |
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Plot Summary:
Two juvenile delinquents escape from boot camp and disguise themselves as missionaries in a small California town. Will they get out before they're discovered? Do they want to? Much faux proselyting ensues...Opinion:
The best thing that can be said about "Suits on the Loose" is that unlike many of its LDS film brethren, it's actually an overachiever. With the recent spate of underachieving Church movies that fail to fulfill their untapped potential, it's notable that despite a basic premise that's weak and predictable, "Suits on the Loose" provides acting, writing and general production values that are all competent or better, creating an LDS film that doesn't transcend the genre into greatness, but doesn't fall over its feet every five minutes and embarrass itself either.
The story is fairly standard, and you've all seen it before: to escape the law, two fugitives disguise themselves as X (could be nuns, foreign exchange students, or any weird subgroup of humanity that's completely removed from our protagonists' natural background. In this case, Mormon missionaries). Our fugitives find themselves in difficult (yet comedic) situations while they try to keep their cover together just long enough to get out of town before their charade is exposed. We have the obligatory story arc where our two fugitives eventually learn to embrace and appreciate their alter-ego's lifestyle and the people they meet...just about the time they get exposed and revealed as frauds. Then you have the obligatory scenes where they return in their true character, beg forgiveness of all the people they fooled and try to salvage their budding personal relationships just in time to have a happy "group-hug" ending.
Nothing new here. It's all pretty much by the book, but it's executed fairly well with the cast of experienced TV and film actors who mesh well. If there's a surprise, it is that the movie takes this comedic premise and more or less plays it straight. The setup is there for a totally over-the-top screwball comic farce, but writer/director Rodney Henson keeps the tone of the movie grounded--more of a character-drama with moments of humor, rather than a full-out wacky 'comedy'. Not what audiences may have been expecting given the previews (and the tendency of other LDS releases to go for jokes and 'wackiness' first and character second) but I submit a good decision in this case. A true farce might have been fun...but would have been very difficult to pull off successfully, and the filmmakers deserve credit for keeping the movie and most of the characters within the bounds of reality. The only characters that seem to be from a different movie are the two real missionaries whose identities are stolen in the beginning and whose attempts at screwball dialogue and antics are only moderately successful.
If you think about it, pulling off even a remotely serious or realistic movie based on this farcical premise is a difficult job in itself. As anyone who has served as (or met) an actual LDS missionary knows, companionships are very autonomous--daily activities have very little 'adult' supervision. Given as much, there's little realistic reason why two fugitives would be constantly constrained into a 'missionary' lifestyle, considering how easily real missionaries can get away with unmissionary-like lifestyles, but all things considered the movie pulls this off pretty well. We understand why they used the disguise in the first place, and we see step-by-step the somewhat logical circumstances that compel them to keep up the pretense for several days in a row--continuing to do missionary things while looking for but never finding an optimal opportunity to break away and run for it. Sure, it's still contrived, but it's not as obvious or forced as you might have suspected...
The writing is decent, also--miles above where Mobsters & Mormons ended up--and occasionally clever. (The "black cowboy" bit, and the riff on "Elder Elder" are high points) Considering one of the two faux missionaries is black, I kept waiting for the inevitable line from a character: "I didn't know the Mormons HAD black missionaries", but thankfully the movie resists this urge. The movie loses points with an ending with a large number of plot details left unresolved, but from an overall perspective "Suits on the Loose" is still a net positive step for LDS films as a whole.
"Suits on the Loose" is worth a look--provided you keep your expectations low, and don't look for it to be a laugh-a-minute comedy farce. While I'm not an "Give 'em an A for effort!" kind of guy, you still have to give some respect for the overachiever that finds a way to succeed despite not having the raw talent of the bigger guys...
Content Analysis: (PG, 1-0-2-1 on the Baron's scale)
Very PG, with a fist-fight and some underage drinking being the worst 'sins'. Based on the premise, LDS audiences might be concerned how the movie handles two non-missionaries handling some of the more serious (and sacred) aspects of missionary work, but there's nothing to worry about. Henson stays FAR away from having the fake elders do anything priesthood related--an obvious choice given the target audience.
(Tangential Question: if Justin or Ty had consented to baptize Bro. Steedman in the context of their disguise what would have happened? Presumably the bishop would ask him to get baptized over again after the scam was discovered. An annoyance, of course, but rebaptisms do seem to have been fairly common in the New Testament & Book of Mormon for just this kind of thing... I wonder if this has actually happened...)
The movie does kind of cheat by having most of their missionary work be service-related instead of actual proselyting. Other than one instance of testimony sharing, and an attempt to teach a discussion, the movie spends surprisingly little time trying to fit our two protagonists into a true missionary lifestyle, other than just as an outward identity.
(Missed opportunity: It might have been funny to have a follow-up scene where the real missionaries are meeting with Brother Steedman to teach a discussion...and have them struggle with reading the text right out of the discussion book and answering questions as Justin and Ty did. Certainly I knew real missionaries whose discussions amounted to reciting text out of a book and hoping the investigators didn't ask any questions...)
In-depth Analysis:
Some things that could (should?) have been expounded upon for a more full experience:- Why were Justin and Ty in the 'boot camp' to begin with? Part of a plea bargain from juvenile court following some law-breaking? Sent there unwillingly by their family members? It'd be nice to know exactly what kind of background the two of them came from.
- Sarah's ex-boyfriend comments about how they were fine until she one day "got all religious". Presumably this means she's a recent convert, although her conversion story--nor in fact any of her activity in the Church or gospel is not mentioned within the movie.
- We need more details on the relationship between Justin and his dad. We know Justin hates him and can guess why, but the only specific instance that's mentioned is his dad not coming to his baseball game when he was seven. There obviously must be more than just this, of course (and we should note that there are many reasonable excuses for a parent to be absent due to work or other activities. Many bishops today are fairly busy in the evenings with meetings and interviews and undoubtedly miss baseball games often too...) but the movie never shares anything more specific to really let us judge how serious the problem is, and to what extent, if any, Justin himself is part of the problem.
- Justin's dad mentions upon his entrance that he'd had a talk with the bishop, and there's a small hint that the bishop has known beforehand that the two elders weren't real elders, but when/if he had figured this out is not explained or followed up on in the film.
- The end is somewhat confusing too, as after Justin encounters his dad, he returns to the boot camp, but we don't know for sure whether that's because he agreed to "return" with his dad as he asked, or because he refused... The aftermath of his talk with his dad is not discussed. Some additional material dealing with their relationship might have been valuable.
- We also don't know how the confession of the fake missionaries affected Bro. Steedman's initial desire to be baptized. Since Justin ends up working for him, we can assume things were smoothed over between them, but his continuing conversion story is left hanging...
Added together, these are a lot of plot threads that are left hanging, making the ending somewhat weak. All of this could probably have been handled with an additional ten minutes of dialogue, and would probably have made the movie characterizations stronger without hurting the pacing too much...
I found it significant also that the movie doesn't end with anyone getting baptized--neither Justin, Ty, nor even Brother Steedman get dunked within the movie. Mormonism provides the context but not the point of the movie, so it could be argued that any future conversion of any of the main characters are tangential to the plot, and we can respect writer/director Rodney Henson for not shoehorning some baptisms into the plot in an attempt to pander to the local audience. Left unsaid, though, is how their difference in religions affects the future relationship between Sarah and Justin--you'd have to assume part of the attraction from her to him in the first place was because they 'shared' the same beliefs...
Random Notes & Comments:
(1) If the movie really wanted to be bold, it would have had Justin be the one who took a liking to missionary service in general, and Ty be the one to fall for Sarah. That would have added a racial undercurrent to the love story, but it would have been original. (Ty does appear to have the opportunity to get a girl of his own at the end, but it would have been bolder to make that one of the main plot threads instead of an aside at the end...)
