Neal McDonough to Play Satan in Faith-Based Movie – The Hollywood Reporter

‘the shift’

Angel Studios

You’ll know a lot about Satan after watching Angel Studios’ new religious-themed sci-fi drama. He’s fond of steak and eggs, so you don’t have to worry that he’s not getting enough protein. He clearly has insecurity issues – he’s trying to get someone to follow him instead of God, and he whines, “He doesn’t care about you, I care about him!” He looks like a rejected lover. And he’s certainly seen one too many Marvel movies set in the multiverse.

The last observation stems from the fact that the shift, written and directed by Brooke Heasley, traffics in the same pesky multiverse complexities that made the Marvel movies so daunting. Since the story moves endlessly and confusingly from one reality to another, it’s very easy to tune in until we’re faced with an interesting reality. Unfortunately, this never happens.

In the film’s opening moments, we see a man emerging from a lake fully clothed, his voiceover telling us: “This isn’t my world” (you’ll soon feel the same way). He’s Kevin (Christopher Pulaha, and if he sounds familiar, you’ve been watching one too many Hallmark movies), who, at the beginning of the story, loses his job at the financial firm and is mired in his own troubles at the bar. But things quickly improve for him when the beautiful Molly (Elizabeth Tabish, Mary Magdalene) approaches him the to choose) who tells him that her friends dared her to talk to him. They must have succeeded, because the scene jumps a few years into the future when they are married and have a child. Suddenly they weren’t anymore, as a result of a tragedy.

Kevin is then involved in a car accident and wakes up to find himself repaired by a steely-eyed, sharply dressed man who introduces himself only as “The Donor.” They have dinner at a café, where all the customers and staff look terrified. To prove his powers, the donor makes the waitress disappear by fiddling with something on his wrist that he calls a “pervert” (no doubt Apple will introduce this feature soon) and tells Kevin that he “transported” the woman to another dimension. He offers Kevin another molly if he will come work for him as a “convert.”

Kevin rejects the offer and asks God for help. “do you pray?” the donor asks in confusion. “Well, this is the first time.” But the prayer seems to work, because he immediately disappears.

Five years later, Kevin lives hidden in a dystopian alternate universe that resembles downtown Detroit. He illegally writes Bible passages for his best friend Gabriel (Sean Astin) and spends time in a former movie theater, where he participates in “viewing experiences” as he scans multiple universes in search of Molly’s doppelgänger.

If you’re confused, you’ll have plenty of company from then on the shift It doesn’t really prioritize plot coherence. All you really need to know is that the film is a loose adaptation of the Job book if Stan Lee ever got his hands on it, minus the superheroes. (Well, there’s God, though he doesn’t even have a cameo.) Fighting the Benefactor, Kevin finds himself landing in different universes until he reunites with Molly, or a version of her who seems just as confused as we are.

It’s a lot to take in, so much in fact, that it makes you wonder if the director’s 2017 short, which inspired this feature, was any easier to take in. (It’s available on YouTube, but I wasn’t curious enough to find out.) Ironically, the shift He works best in his less respectable and more lighthearted moments, like when Gabriel, in one world or another, denies knowing Kevin.

“This is a classic,” comments the smiling donor. “Come on, deny it again.”

And while Polaha gives an appropriately powerful performance as the beleaguered, Job-like hero, it’s no surprise that it’s Satan who steals the show (and he always does). McDonough, whose chiseled features and piercing blue eyes have made him a favorite Hollywood villain, seems so perfect for the role that it makes you wonder why it took so long to play him. When the donor seems very upset at being called a liar and makes some reasonable points during the film’s theological discussions, you begin to wonder if you’re on the wrong side.

Angel Studios, responsible for the surprise hits Freedom’s voice And the chosen, once again indulges in his outrageous trick of delivering a “special message” after the credits. The shy-looking Polaha implores us to do “small acts of kindness,” like buying tickets for other people to see the movie in the theater via a handy QR code pasted on the screen. So the money doesn’t go, for example, to desperate refugees or to feed the hungry, but goes directly into the studio’s coffers. There is charity for you.