Tulsa (2020) - Review Thread

Part of the "Movies Dracula Wouldn't Use to Wipe His Ass" series!

It's that time we've all been waiting for!  Movie theaters are open, and in my case that would be the Regal cinemas.  I get to that theater early and get to see Maria Menounos AKA hot nurse from 2005 Fantastic Four say "Hi!  I'm Maria Menounos!" repeatedly as if I'm supposed to care what her name is and not stare at her cleavage.  There are not many new flicks to catch one's eye.  I saw a movie called Words on Bathroom Walls, which is a fairly basic young adult romance with a schizophrenic main character and AnnaSophia Robb in hippie garb as one of his delusions.  That was fine, I guess.  Surprisingly the cutesy movie that made mental illness look fun was the movie that sucked the least this weekend.

I'm not one to ride too hard on religious films.  If something means something deeply to you, good on you.  It's not my place to take that away.  I had a lot of issues with I Still Believe earlier this year, none of which really had to do with its Christian heart, but rather it's artificial retelling of what should have been a personal story.  I didn't hate the movie, I just thought it was poorly done.  By contrast, one of my favorite movies last year was The Sky is Pink, which had a Christian slant, but told a story foremost, brought up religion because it was relevant to its story of life, death, mortality, and life of one's loved ones beyond your own mortality, and didn't act like a sales pitch for Christianity to people who already purchased it.

Tulsa, on the other hand, is the type of movie that makes the Christian community look like manipulated tools.  We're talking Kirk Cameron levels of shit.  At first, I wasn't sure I was going to write anything about Tulsa.  It's fucking awful, but it wasn't really awful in an interesting way.  But this movie just stewed with me.  It wouldn't leave my brain.  That's kind of how these write-ups started with Radioflash last year, where I was so baffled by what I saw that I had to write it down.  I never know where inspiration for this series is going to come from, but I know it when I see it.

Tulsa is one of those movies that takes a trite concept and retells it for that audience that is a sucker for this particular story, in this case that story of an unwanted child being dumped on a parental figure's doorstep and winds up changing said parental figure's life for the better.  It certainly feels like the filmmakers saw, say, Big Daddy starring Adam Sandler and decided they wanted to make the same movie with a Christian angle.  Unfortunately the people who made the movie have no artistic understanding of film other than that it's a medium where you point cameras at people who say things and then you edit it all together.  It's a movie made by people who understand that cliches can be effective on certain audiences, but doesn't comprehend the concept of wielding them effectively to create a movie that might be fluff, but at least is passable fluff.  Instead it's a retread, one that isn't even retreading well, and is utterly baffling in its lacking of basic competence.

But let's start from the top.  Those who have read this series before know the drill.


Tulsa starts with brief melodramatic shots that don't match the rest of the movie.  A little foster girl named Tulsa has just called the police because her foster mother attacked her foster brother Michael.  What exactly happened, I'm not sure, but considering this woman is clearly off her rocker and screaming at the children things like "I was your last chance!" and "Nobody will ever love you," one wonders how she passed a basic child welfare check in her life.  Tulsa and Michael are taken away by social services, Michael finds a home "with family" pretty fast (This kid has a family who is willing to take him in but is up for adoption?  Is he just up for the highest bidder?), but Tulsa has nowhere to go, so it's up to social service worker with a heart of gold and a cute ass Jaylene to find her a place to stay (and if you think I'm objectifying her by saying she has a "cute ass," too bad because her only defining trait in this movie other than being a nothing, fretting, maybe-girlfriend character is that she looks good in a pair of jeans.  When the movie stops treating her like a prop, so will I). Tulsa tells Jaylene everything will work out because Jesus loves her (the first of many name drops for Jesus), and one day she'll be reunited with her estranged father which she happens to have a photo of.  Jaylene takes one look at the picture and says "Is your dad's name Tommy?"  Yep.  She just happens to know who he is and happens to have his phone number in her back pocket.  I'm sure this movie is trying to play this coincidence off as "divine intervention," but in reality it's just bad storytelling.

Anyway, cut to Tommy who is looking depressed as he shuffles his way to bed, booze in one hand and a loaded gun in the other.  I don't know if he's contemplating suicide or if this is just some weird Republican bedtime ritual.  His phone keeps ringing and he finally answers, and the voice on the other end is former high school acquaintance Jaylene, who says Tulsa claims to be his daughter.  Tulsa's mother was an ex-flame of Tommy's who broke up with him before she was born and died in a motorcycle accident.  While there is no proof Tommy is Tulsa's father, the photo and timeline match up.  Since Tulsa needs an immediate short term home, Jaylene takes Tulsa to Tommy's messy, run down house.  Jaylene is not impressed but Tulsa says "Okay, I'll stay."  Tulsa's such a free spirit!  In the meantime, a paternity test will be made to determine if Tommy is Tulsa's father or not.

After Jaylene leaves, it's awkward daddy/daughter time.  Tulsa questions the hell out of Tommy to know more about her father.  This scene is derivative of a lot of similar scenes, but it somehow manages to seem clueless and weird even with templates to follow.  Questions range from her asking "Do you have a girlfriend?" in a teasing singsong voice that sounds like she has "Tommy and Jaylene sittin' in a tree..." on the tip of her tongue, all the way to questions as simple as "What's your favorite movie?," to which Tommy responds without hesitation "Blackbear."  Initially I thought this was some made up movie to keep this movie out of copyright trouble, as I've never heard of it.  Turns out this movie not only exists, but it was written, produced by, and stars Scott Pryor, who wrote, produced, and co-directed this movie and plays Tommy.  This is some Roger Corman inspired self promotion right here.  Anywho, Tommy, not wanting to deal with this child, tells Tulsa to not touch anything in his house.  But Tulsa knows best and wants Tommy to put on a good impression for the welfare check and cleans up his house, much to his chagrine.  Oh such cute shenanigans!  They'd be hilarious if this movie had any sense of comic timing and delivery!

Tulsa's life-interference extends to his workplace, where he owns a failing motorcycle repair shop that's behind on its rent.  Tulsa spends a lot of time with his employee, a large black man named Tiny, because all large black men are named "Tiny," I guess.  Tiny is, like, the worst character you could possibly be, because he's not really a character.  He's a blank drone who solely exists in this movie to listen intently to Tulsa.  Several cringe-inducing moments of the film are devoted to his interactions with her.  Early on there's a disapproving conversation Tulsa has with him regarding a picture of a sexy woman in a tied up shirt on the wall (never-you-mind that this pin-up is actually quite tame, all things considered), where Tulsa asks who his lady friend is and Tiny, for no reason, lies and says "My sister" (I'm not even going to get into the fact that Pin-Up Girl is way more Caucasian than he is), and Tulsa responds by saying his "sister" needs some clothes.  Next time we see the pin-up, there is a flannel shirt drawn onto her, so...funny?  There's also a moment where Tulsa talks about Jesus to Tiny, to which he responds as if this is the most fascinating thing he's ever heard.  And when she taps her heart and says he's "Right here," Tiny breaks the fourth wall and stares into the camera, exclaiming "WHOA!"

As I sat there choking on my own vomit, a thought occurred to me:  "Is this what the writers think non-Christians are?  Uninformed ignoramuses?"  Like, do they think that the mere mention of Jesus's name will blow people's minds and they'll instantly seek salvation?  Belief is more complicated than that.  Your average American knows who Jesus was.  They know what Christianity is.  This country has a history of being Christian dominated for centuries.  Why is this goddamn repair shop being treated like it needs a nine-year-old missionary?

But this movie is just getting warmed up.  It's stupidity is getting ready for its big swings, so get ready.

It's Tulsa's first day at school, and she's afraid the other children will tease her.  Jesus saves Tulsa from a lot of things, but not from the cruelty of other kids.  Tommy tells her that the secret to getting respect in the schoolyard is to walk up to the biggest girl in class and punch her in the face (this is actually so unfunny that it somehow becomes funny in how dumb it is).  Then he gets an idea of how to get people to not pick on her.

Sunglasses.

His idea is sunglasses.

They walk into the school in a cheesy slow-motion shot and walk right up to Jaylene and the principal and they both say "'Sup."  As this happens I sink lower in my seat hoping I'm not seen in this theater.  And I sat through Playing with Fire, motherfucker.

Tulsa goes into school and Tommy hangs around for a little bit, when three nine-year-old bitchy, gossip queens walk past him saying things like "Did you see the new girl?  She's covered in grease."  Tommy then bends over, informs them that Tulsa is his daughter, and if anybody says anything bad about her, they'll go missing.

Now, let's spend the rest of the movie pretending our male lead didn't just threaten to kidnap and possibly murder three schoolchildren.

Tommy is too busy trying to figure out finances for the repair shop and forgets to pick Tulsa up from school.  I have the moment that follows completely etched into my memory because it was the moment I realized Tulsa was more than a lame movie and was a genuine dog turd.  In this scene, Tulsa is waiting at school for her dad to pick her up but instead runs into trio primadonna that Tommy threatened earlier.  The three of the walk up next to Tulsa and turn ninety degrees in unison toward her in a totally sitcom choreographed move.  As they teased the little orphan girl, it suddenly felt to me as if a Full House style laugh track was meant to be added to this movie in post.

Long story short, Tulsa leaves the school and walks home, and Tommy eventually finds her on her way, which leads to a tearful confrontation where Tulsa asks her dad why he never bothered to look for her and Tommy assures her that he didn't even know she existed until the phone call from Jaylene.  The canned audience in my head goes "Awwwwww" as they share the heartwarming moment, meanwhile I'm wondering why we're further establishing this when the movie already explained that he didn't know about Tulsa earlier.

Forgive me if some of this is jumbled up.  This movie is sometimes a whirlwind of random cutesy scenes, some of which are relevant to a narrative, some of which are just nonsensical crap.  There is a lot of schmaltz in Tommy's bonding with Tulsa, like it's out of an after school special.  There's talk of attending a daddy-daughter dance, Tulsa learning to ride a bike, Tulsa trying to set Tommy up on a date with Jaylene, Tommy getting all fancied up and trying to bluff his way through a welfare check, and a scene where Tulsa finds Tommy all drugged up and promises him together we can beat this!  Also, Tommy starts reading the Bible, because someone needs to be converted in a Christian movie.



There is also a scene where Tulsa tries to ensure Tommy has enough money for the rent on his garage, so she calls up each of the customers who hasn't paid their bill and speaks to them in the most fake sounding baritone voice you've ever heard, and tells them they're invited to a raffle at the garage.  Everyone shows up and...puts their keys in a bowl for some reason (this movie could have taken an adult turn, just saying), and Tulsa informs them they can get their keys back if they pay their bill.  Every single one of them claims they're all paid up.  Upon hearing, this, Tommy turns to some dude with a beard that, if he was in the movie before this, I heeded him no attention.  Tommy then screams at Beard Guy "You keeping money from me?"  I'm like...why would he have the money?  Who the fuck is this guy?  They then search the pockets of Beard Guy and find a giant wad of cash in his pocket, as if someone who is syphoning money from a business would be stupid enough to keep it on them at all times (fucking hell, this movie).  They take it, tell this new character that he's fired, and Beard Guy tells them "This isn't over."  Of course it isn't, because we had foreshadowing!

Eventually, during Tulsa's daily nosing around she discovers a sonogram photograph.  She confronts Tommy in tears because she is convinced that this is proof that Tommy knew of her the entire time.  I suppose this is why it was re-established why Tommy didn't seek out Tulsa earlier, though a smart storyteller would have probably combined the two scenes, eliminated the earlier scene, and confined Tulsa's suspicions to right here, because that earlier scene is fucking worthless. But back to the narrative, Tommy gets a distant look in his eye (I'm adding this in, because emoting isn't Tommy's strong point) and informs her that the sonogram isn't of her, it's of his son.

What comes next is the movie's lowest point.  It is a flashback scene so fall-down stupid that even if Tulsa were a good movie, it would have single handedly killed it.

So we flashback to years ago, when Tommy was with some other woman who we've never seen before and I can't remember the name of.  Tommy's girlfriend runs up to Tommy with a smile and says "They've finally figured out what's wrong with me!  I'm pregnant!  They think I'm about four months along!"



Hold on, time out, movie.  She's been pregnant for four months and she just found out?  This is like late-end of developing baby bump stage.  It's not impossible, but this takes purposeful ignorance to not know at this point.

My concerns for how dim this woman is aside, Tommy gets a dark look in his eye (more of me projecting emotion on Tommy), but his girlfriend assures him that she wants to do this, and she thinks they can both "get clean!"



See...this line right here.  This confirms they're both junkies (they both look pretty clean cut to be junkies, but that's beside the point).  If they aren't "clean" and she's already nearly halfway through her pregnancy, that fetus is probably pretty fucked up by now if they've been using this entire time.

Tommy just scowls at her.  Then he growls "Get rid of it."  The A-word is never mentioned, but this being a Christian production, it's the evil He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Dark Lord Voldemort that lingers over the scene.  Woman-Whose-Name-I-Can't-Remember is devastated.  "You don't mean that!" she exclaims to him.  He doesn't respond, and she leaves in tears.

Cut to her crying in her car with a lake in view.  Tommy's calling her and leaving messages apologizing, but she won't pick up.  She then grabs a bottle of pills and hard swallows everything inside.  As if the fact that she just fucking overdosed on camera was too subtle for the viewers at home who haven't figured out this woman is commiting suicide yet, the movie decides this isn't melodramatic enough so she stumbles out of her car and just kind of walks out into the lake and keeps walking until she is entirely submerged and never resurfaces.



I still don't think it's fully clear that she killed herself.  Perhaps if she doused herself in gasoline, lit a match, and ran screaming in flames of a cliff instead...

Anyway, the story is a huge bonding moment for Tommy and Tulsa, as it's now known that in a way Tulsa is the child that Tommy never had the chance to have.  The two of them get closer than ever and after this point they show themselves to be more father and daughter than ever.

After this, Tulsa needs to go to school, but Tommy is busy working on something and can't take her immediately.  Tulsa tells him that she could walk by herself, and suddenly the entire theater freezes over as we anticipate the upcoming bad decision that will drive the third act.  Tommy is argumentive with her over it at first, but eventually relents because, in the end, it's less work for him to do.

Now, originally I expected Beard Guy to come back during this scene and kidnap Tulsa to teach Tommy a lesson or something.  This movie admittedly subverted my expectations at this point.  But it only subverted my expectations because it did something intensely stupid instead.  Instead we have a woman we've never seen before and she's driving an empty bus, all the while she's fumbling around with the GPS on her phone.  She drops it and, instead of pulling over, she dive bombs to pick it up and WHAM!  She hits Tulsa.

And the moral of the story is, don't play with your phones while driving.  The end.  GOOD NIGHT FOLKS!

Nah, this movie keeps going.  But it might as well have ended here, because the third act is pretty worthless.

Tulsa is sent into the hospital where we meet an actual actor in this movie for the first time, but don't get too excited because it's John Schneider from Dukes of Hazzard and Smallville (it's hard for me to consider anyone who's been on a CW show a real actor, but I'm desperate here).  He plays Tulsa's doctor, who informs them she's been put into a medically induced coma and is suffering from brain swelling.  Everyone is heartbroken by what happened to Tulsa, and Tommy even finds himself praying for God to take him instead.  No need right now, because Tulsa wakes up soon, and bonding commences.  But her progress is weak, and Dr. Dad from Smallville informs Tommy that Tulsa will likely die soon from the brain swelling.  He does offer him a 50/50 chance with a new procedure though.  Tommy discusses it with Tulsa, who is willing to go through with it, because Tulsa is knowing and wise.

While Tulsa prepares for surgery, Tommy goes to a restaurant for a glass of whiskey.  It reaches his table, but he doesn't drink it.  FOR TULSA! he thinks, valiantly!  Then he gets up and leaves, completely wasting our time with visual character development we've already deduced.  But as he leaves, he runs into Beard Guy.  Remember him?  His hair is slicked back in a hilarious attempt to look street tough but he just winds up looking like a douche and he's with three other nameless guys.  Presumably they're there to beat up Tommy, but we never really get a chance to find out because Beard Guy says "Where's your brat?" and Tommy just fucking decks him in the jaw, starting the fight that may or may not have happened.  As Tommy gets his ass kicked, we hear police sirens and Tiny appears out of nowhere to scare the guys off.  It's his one scene where he isn't being lectured by Tulsa.

Next thing we know, Jaylene is picking Tommy up from jail.  Tommy wants to visit Tulsa, but he can't because his foster rights were suspended due to his arrest.  Tommy asks if Jaylene could supervise him so he can see her, and that's a no go too because she's...been...suspended...for some reason.  I don't know what the fuck happened there, maybe it's because she set Tulsa up with Tommy, or maybe she's too close to the family, but the movie doesn't bother to explain because it assumes it's self explanatory.

Tommy decides "Fuck child services" and marches straight into the hospital.  There is a nurse who tries to stop him and then tries to call the cops, but she is stopped by a generic, sassy black nurse who is all like "You ain't stoppin' that man from seein' his little girl!"  The non-humorous nurse replies "I'm not gonna break the law..." before sassy nurse interrupts "If you don't put that phone down, the law ain't gonna be the ONLY thing broken 'round here!"

There are a lot of idle threats on behalf of Tulsa in this movie.

Tommy and Jaylene make it to Tulsa's room, and tell her that despite being in ICU before a costly procedure on her brain, they're there to take her to the daddy-daughter dance.  They change Tulsa into a dress that's totally adorable, then realized they made big dumb because they didn't plan a way out of the hospital.  Cue John Schneider, who walks in and stares at them sternly.  Then, in a moment that single-handedly makes him the worst doctor of all time, he tells them to use the side doors to the hospital.  He then claims he didn't see anything and lets them leave.  Tommy and Jaylene take Tulsa to the daddy-daughter dance, where Tommy dances with Tulsa and everybody around them cheers.  Because they know the situation and approve?  I really don't know.  I've long since stopped trying to make sense of this movie's version of reality.

Anyway, the next scene, they're back at the hospital and Tommy, Jaylene, and a few others are waiting for updates on Tulsa's procedure.  John Schneider walks out and merely shakes his head at them, and everybody starts crying.  Tulsa is dead, and I can only assume it's the fault of everybody in this fucking room because they took her out of the fucking hospital when she needed to be there most.  Fucking idiots.

The next scene features Tommy staring at a lake (hopefully not the one where his pregnant girlfriend killed herself, because that would be weird).  Jaylene walks up behind him and tells him she quit her job out of principal.

..........

Why?!?!?!

I mean, like, I get that you thought Tommy was treated unfairly, but as far as I can tell nobody did anything wrong.  The fucker went to jail, for fuck's sake.  You can maybe argue there should be an appeal for his rights to see his daughter, but in the immediate aftermath of that, there is legitimate concern about him.  You can't expect them to overrule it immediately and say "You get one freebie."

This movie is so fucking stupid, man.

Jaylene then says that Tommy treated Tulsa well, "Even when you knew she wasn't your daughter."

This is the one moment where the movie legitimately surprised me.  That's because the movie threw so much bullshit at me for the last two hours that I legitimately forgot that there was question as to whether Tommy was her father or not and there was a paternity test to determine it.  After a while of watching this mess, I just kind of blindly accepted that he was her biological father.  I think the filmmakers wanted the viewer to be "swept up" in the movie so it would have this effect, so this is as close to a success of intent that I can give this movie.  So, you got one.  Bravo.

Tommy informs her that no matter what "Tulsa will always be my daughter."  Heartwrenching moment acquired.

Tommy returns home a reads a letter that Tulsa wrote before she died, I guess.  There's really no set up for this, he just has a letter.  Tulsa's letter assures him that she's in Heaven now with Jesus and God and her mom and she'll even promise to say hello to his unborn son when she sees him.  No mention of his dead, unstable girlfriend.  I guess she's rotting in hell, that bitch.  She also asks Tommy to adopt Michael, the little kid from the beginning of the movie that we forgot about because he hasn't been relevant to anything until now.

Cut to one year later, Tommy and Jaylene are a couple and Jaylene is very, very pregnant, proving that she was only in this movie to have her uterus be the reward for the male lead.  They hang up a sign that says "Welcome Home, Michael!" as the little kid from the beginning runs around them.  I'd also like to add that even though in continuity time within the film, it's been about a year and a half since we've seen this kid and he hasn't grown at all.  He was about two-years-old when we saw him at the beginning, he's about two-years-old now.

But I respect the movie's restraint, because considering how cliched this movie has been this entire time, I expected us to flash forward even further, and find out their new baby is a little girl and they've probably named her Tulsa.  Meanwhile, New Tulsa grows throughout the years and this fucking Michael kid is cursed to be two-years-old forever.  That or he has some Gary Coleman affliction.

Fade to black.  Then the a block of text appears onscreen, claiming this movie was made for someone's sister named Tulsa.  I'm a bit confused at this point (only I could be confused by white text in a movie).  The poster to this movie says "Based on true events," which maybe means this movie is based on a real little girl named Tulsa, but the text at the end talks about her in present tense, which alludes that she certainly didn't die when she was nine.  Unless they're speaking in some sort of spiritual metaphor, like Tulsa is no longer physically with us but she'll always be here in spirit.

But here's the thing, I Still Believe was based on true events too.  Since Jeremy Camp is a public figure, these events are pretty well recorded.  The film's failure to capture those events in a meaningful way is fully on the film, but it stands to reason a lot of what that film showed actually happened.  With Tulsa, there seems to be a lot of grey zone because this would have been a more personal story to a more private family.  Does the term "real events" simply mean there is a woman that exists named Tulsa and she was once nine-years-old?  The movie is so fucking manipulative that I wouldn't be surprised if the "real events" tag is a manipulation as well, kind of like how Texas Chainsaw Massacre used "true story" as a selling point to make it seem scarier even though most of the movie is bullshit.  How much can I trust this movie?

I can't.  This movie didn't earn my trust.  As a story, it told a story that you can find in at least one movie per year, which means this movie isn't unique.  In tone, it felt like it was jerking me around and talking down to me like I was a dumbass.  In filmmaking, the film is startlingly amateurish.  It's more expensive than Ouija Shark, but it's almost as if the filmmakers knew even less about filmmaking, if that makes sense.  The acting is off-putting.  The lead actor/co-director, Scott Pryor, is monotonous.  He only has one tone to his voice and one facial expression, and it's all he can muster for any scenario.  The little girl playing Tulsa seems to be acting based on what she's told her expression should be in each scene, and she proceeds to wildly exaggerate each expression from there.  Everyone else in the cast isn't that important, but a handful are serviceable (Jaylene), while the rest look plucked off the street and clueless as to why they're there (Tiny).

This movie is a rare example of a movie that does literally everything wrong.  If the movie ever had a heart in its trite concept, it was betrayed somewhere along the road through a cynical and lazy execution of a generic family tearjerker.  Every time it tries to be charming, the film feels stiff, robotic, and inhuman.  When it tries to be meaningful, it does so through the most unrelatable lense of the world you can imagine, which makes it meaningless.

Tulsa will not go down in history as the worst movie I've ever seen, but it definitely is a contender for the cringiest.

"I'm Maria Menounos.  We'll see you next time!"