The Times (online)
22 August, 2002
By James Christopher

Finally a plug for Sophie Fiennes’s intriguing documentary about black faith in a hard place. Hoover Street Revival is a piece of pure observation, set in and around a buzzy gospel church in a woe-begotten Los Angeles suburb. Shots of local lives, jobs, houses, bathrooms, kids and kitchen sinks, are imaginatively bled into footage of the charismatic pastor, Bishop Noel Jones. This is a man who turns a neat profit from packaging and selling his emotive sermons. But his parishioners need to believe in him is strangely moving. The stories of abuse, jail, drugs and redemption are tempered with humour and sometimes tears. It’s a rare and eloquent mosaic of a resilient community.

The Guardian (online)
23 August, 2002
By Andrew Pulver

There is much that is impressive about Sophie Fiennes's documentary portrait of a revivalist congregation in Watts, one of the most troubled districts in Los Angeles. Bravely dispensing with the usual appurtenances of the factual film - voiceover, talking heads, a narrative drive - Fiennes has assembled a collage of footage that pays eloquent testimony to the infectious religiosity that appears to be such a powerful force in an otherwise desperate community. The central figure is hyperactive preacher Noel Jones - known as "the bishop", although he doesn't appear to be affiliated to any religious group other than the Noel Jones Ministries. Jones is a live wire up on the pulpit. Backed by the justly renowned choir of the Greater Bethany Church, he is an archetypal exponent of that mix of heartfelt sermonising and high-octane oratory that has been an American phenomenon since the frontier days.

Using Jones and the church as a central reference point, Fiennes ranges out across South Central LA, taking in everything from the aftermath of a drive-by shooting to the contents of a homeless woman's holdall. As a mosaic of a community in crisis, the film is forceful and revelatory. It is complemented by some superb aerial footage illustrating the nature of the sprawl: the area is no inner-city brutalist high-rise jungle, but a seemingly endless tract of low-rise dwellings cut through by wide freeways.

The film does have a major weakness, however: its reluctance to explore any individual in detail means that it never really gets beneath the surface of things. This is especially the case with Jones, whose religious credentials and commercial activity never occasion more than passing scrutiny. Compared with Jonathan Demme's My Cousin Bobby, another portrait of a fiercely committed churchman in a deprived African-American neighbourhood, Hoover Street Revival leaves Jones as a sketchy figure. By choosing not to turn this pastor into a concrete figure, the film has left itself with a weak centre where it needs a strong one.

The Times (online) 9 November, 2002 James Christopher's Choice from the London Film Festival

NEW BRITISH CINEMA
Hoover Street Revival
(The Ritzy, Nov 15; Odeon West End, Nov 17)
Sophie Fiennes’s documentary about black faith is a piece of pure observation, filmed around a buzzy gospel church in a ghetto in Los Angeles. Shots of local jobs, houses, kids and kitchen sinks are imaginatively spliced with footage of the charismatic pastor, Bishop Noel Jones (brother of the singer Grace). A rare and eloquent mosaic of a beleaguered community. Release date, tba