Rent Same Kind of Different as Me (2017)

Same Kind of Different as Me review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

I was waiting to see how long it would take the Christian-themed studio of Pure Flix to produce a clumsy feel-good movie about taking in the poor black man. You may know this genre from the likes of The Blind Side, in which Sandra Bullock took in a meek and poor black teen into her rich lifestyle to make a life better. Same Kind of Different as Me makes no change to this formula, making it all the blander in case the drama of The Blind Side was too much for Christian audiences to handle. Here’s a softer movie for that crowd. Greg Kinnear soft.

Despite being based on a true story, the film does little to ground itself past melodrama. Kinnear plays Ron Hall, an art dealer with his wealthy marriage on rocky ground. They have teenage kids, but you’ll only see and hear about one of them. To make amends for cheating on his wife (Renée Zellweger), he partakes in her acts of charity with working at the local soup kitchen. There he learns through blunt and clunky conversations that he doesn’t realize how easy he has it. And so to better understand the plight of the poor, the Hall family takes in a black hobo. Ah, and a fine one they choose with Denver, a shy and soft-spoken man of faith with some anger issues, played by Djimon Hounsou. He has a bitter past of slavery and crime, not afraid to tell it over a cup of coffee while the music swells. How could they not take in such an interesting person?

An immediate defense of the film, as with all stories based on true events, is that to criticize its story is to criticize the real people. The tagline of “an inspiring true story” and what-happened-after credit sequence with real photos is not a get-out-of-bad-movie-jail-free card. The film never feels too guilty or driving with its story, always treating the events with the familiar Pure Flix glaze, perfect for grandma to doze off while watching. Watch how the initial fight between Kinnear and Zellweger is edited in such a way that is almost comical, as though it were hastily edited for television with all the adult language stripped. Ron has a racist dad by Jon Voight, now so old he seems to be messing up his lines and throwing the rest of the actors off. Scenes designed to be tear-jerkers come off as awkward, the way Zellweger’s character has a talk with the kids to let their dad date and remarry whoever he wants after she passes away from a terminal disease.

The film is slightly admirable for A) featuring a decent cast of notable names and B) it’s not as goofy as Pure Flix’s other clunky films. There’s no crammed-down-your throat message about God, no going on the attack against those pesky atheists, and no silly cameo by Fox News or lack of subtlely inserting Chic Fillet into the conversation. There’s an attempt by most of the actors to deliver decent performances amid the drama and try to get that positive message across.

But without the Pure Flix ridiculousness of Christ-sploitation aspects, all that the film amounts to drama so soft it evaporates from the mind, doomed to be lost in a timeslot of the Lifetime channel. The intent is still of a dopey production as well, a feel-good tone masking the subtle racism in the picture that’s about as staggering as the messy title of Same Kind of Different As You, as though a nervous white Christian were trying to explain that all black people are the same as white people. Or at least the ones you invite into your home and tell you a tale of more obvious racism.