Movie Review: Average Joe [SUBSCRIBER ONLY]
Added 2025-12-16 09:00:13 +0000 UTCA movie about a dipshit who prays his way to the Supreme Court. It’s worse than you imagine.
Thank you to our wonderful subscribers who no longer have to watch this garbage movie.
5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Andrew Parsons. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Transcriptions of each episode are available at fivefourpod.com
Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social.
Comments
woah shout out to tarrant county babies 🫡
Vicky A
2026-01-01 01:35:35 +0000 UTCI stayed at an Airbnb with my gf that had beautiful views and alpaca right near your little hut thing. A woman and some kids showed up and one kid was just whipping an alpaca in the face with a stick for no reason. We contacted the owners and they said that's the animal caretaker's family and they've had issues with them before because of his religious views. I get that some Christians believe "God gave man dominion over animals" or that "everything God created was for man" or whatever; but it's wild to me that anyone would interpret that shit to justify cruelty to animals. Like, suicide gets you a first row seat to hell because "you're rejecting God's gift of life" (assuming you don't go with the technicality that that's a murder you can't confess to by definition) being overweight or otherwise not in good physical shaps is "disrespecting the body God gifted you with"; but I guess God's cool with you destroying his gift of animal companionship if it satisfies you're weird sadistic urges? I swear, the mental gymnastics people go through to just say "everything I do is actually good because God said so" 🤦♂️
Violence Zack
2025-12-30 00:07:20 +0000 UTCThis guy quitting the military reminded me of Forrest Gump when he just gets the call that his mom is sick and jumps off the boat
Daniel
2025-12-27 04:20:53 +0000 UTCMatthew 6:5-6 cautions against public prayer Anyways so what is this guy thinking he's accomplishing? Oh wait, yeah, it's all actually BS. 🤦♀️
RBF
2025-12-23 21:43:46 +0000 UTCOn the note of God's Not Dead: me and some coworkers got into a small argument about whether that movie is good. One super religious guy said it was. When I told the story at home my cousin, fresh out of rehab and has never described a movie as anything other than "that movie is sickkkk it's so good bro" goes: "oh man that movie? They made me watch it in rehab three times. It's trash".
Ty
2025-12-20 21:22:51 +0000 UTCLmao like I get that they couldn't make up him doing something crazy because it's supposed to be a true story but it's very funny narratively that he's in the army in a war and the way they're gonna show him disobeying an unjust order is him refusing to step on his unit flag, not like... refusing to harm civillians or refusing to put another soldier in harms way or something. The stakes seem very low compared to the environment he's in.
Ronin Fredricson
2025-12-20 16:27:58 +0000 UTCI guess average Joe never read what Jesus said in Matthew 6:6: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you"
thiccclizzy
2025-12-20 06:13:19 +0000 UTC"You don't have a real job and you won't even fix the handrail outside of our home." Peter perhaps overconfident that crossover fans from IBCK have forgotten about The Shelf?
Tiffany
2025-12-20 00:02:48 +0000 UTCThere's a great TikTok account I used to watch a lot where all he did was tear apart these awful movies. They were all in-group movies.
wolverinethad
2025-12-19 17:12:16 +0000 UTCA creator I enjoy recently made a video where he dicussed two kinds of propaganda: a type for the in-group and a type for conversion. This is the former. The out-group dunking on it only reaffirms the logic-free conclusions of the believers. They’re not trying to convince anyone. This is for people incapable of being convinced (eg, by the wife’s empirical demolition of Joe). In my mind, movies like this are a filter designed to sift the childlike-thinkers from anyone with the capacity for critical reasoning.
Sharkbelly
2025-12-18 18:18:11 +0000 UTCDo you wanna be best friends
Ella S.
2025-12-17 22:40:29 +0000 UTCIt's not parasocial, it's just watchin' bad movies with my friends and I love it.
Maggie
2025-12-17 21:17:58 +0000 UTCSame here!!
Maggie
2025-12-17 21:15:53 +0000 UTCThe answer has got to be that the dude played a heavy role in making this film, no? That would explain how he could go from “we gotta include the naked camel chase scene” to “my wife is the person who taught me prayer but also kinda a b**** but don’t say that cause I’m still married” to “I don’t even have to know the Bible to convince people I’m right.” It’s a movie about this guy’s personal psychological contradictions. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. For a person who loves the “so bad it’s good” genre I MIGHT also have to pay to watch this one day, sorry guys, but you led me to it. Like a camel to water.
Guinevere Sims
2025-12-17 20:54:35 +0000 UTCCatholic with an MA in theology here. Really lazy theologizing going on in this film, particularly the comparison of Joe to St Peter, which fails on multiple levels. The Gospels were written by people who already knew how the story ended, and Peter’s denial became part of the narrative of redemption. Toward the end of John’s gospel, Jesus finds Peter on the beach, asks him three times, “Do you love me?” (once for each denial), and gives him his mission to “feed my sheep.” The denial makes the restoration possible. Peter had to fall so he could be lifted back up, and in being lifted up, he becomes the rock on which the church is built (as an aside, Peter’s name in Aramaic and biblical Greek is something like “Rocky”). So when whatshisface says that Joe is more faithful than Peter because he didn’t refuse, he’s comparing Joe to a story he doesn’t really understand. He treats Peter’s denial as if it were merely a test of nerve that Peter failed and Joe passed. But that’s not what’s happening in the Gospel. And tbh anyone who comes after Peter, who knows how his story ends, is in a completely different position. Peter already fell and was restored for us, in a sense. It’s like saying “I’m just as brave as the guy who walked into the dark” while using the flashlight he left behind. The whole dialogue has vaguely Pelagian overtones, which is v strange for such a Protestant-coded film.
Vincent
2025-12-17 17:28:27 +0000 UTC“God’s Not Dead” is a film so incredible that it made me (a person who is actually religious) consider atheism at the end of the experience.
goth lawyer
2025-12-17 16:13:43 +0000 UTCI actually would enjoy listening to Peter Rhiannon and Michael all discuss a Hallmark movie about a big city lawyer
Veronica T
2025-12-17 05:39:21 +0000 UTCI love how all of these movies always have that atheist/disgruntled Christian character who is converted/has their faith reaffirmed by the main character giving the most braindead of dialogue, that is only convincing in the mind of this movie's targeted demo. Like the "one bad meal wouldn't make you swear of the restaurant" bit somehow being convincing enough to make anyone change their mind... I'm surprised they didn't have that character say he didn't believe in God because his mom died of cancer, etc.
Sidewinder
2025-12-17 04:37:34 +0000 UTCIf only Christians had some direction on public vs. private prayer from a source they love and trust…
Jennifer Sader
2025-12-16 23:26:26 +0000 UTC5-4 Master Pancake Theater let's goooooo
genrepunk
2025-12-16 22:16:54 +0000 UTCThese are the roles he gets because Xena instilled in him and enhance his perminent inferiority complex 🔥🤣
Kai Dorothy
2025-12-16 21:44:12 +0000 UTCThere's a Hallmark movie I haven't seen called Hillbilly Elegy, bet it has nothing to do with the Supreme Court or politics in any way 😅
genrepunk
2025-12-16 21:31:35 +0000 UTCWhether it's a Supreme Court opinion or a low-budget movie, the 5-4 gang always puts more thought into criticizing it than was ever put into creating it.
Kazoolhu
2025-12-16 21:28:22 +0000 UTCI'm still holding out for God's Not Dead 5: Beating a Dead God
genrepunk
2025-12-16 21:28:03 +0000 UTCAnd that kid on the team that Joe bullied? His name was Kevin Sorbo.
genrepunk
2025-12-16 21:27:16 +0000 UTCAnd that kicker, boys and girls, grew up to be Harrison Butker.
Jessica Whitaker
2025-12-16 19:39:55 +0000 UTCAs someone who grew up evangelical I'm positive the filmmakers think the camel torture is funny/silly masculine hijinks. Evangelicals love these type of masculine displays and kind of view animals as basically objects for them to enact their masculinity on; men in my church was obsessed with going hunting and organized hunting trips for the (male) members. Men in my church could basically get away with any obnoxious behavior as long as they said they loved Jesus and in fact the obnoxiousness was supported as them performing "God's design" for masculinity which basically meant opposition to femininity. Caring about animals would definitely be seen as weak and feminine
Deanna
2025-12-16 18:44:52 +0000 UTCPlease do God’s not dead 2 - if my evangelical-raised ass had to be subjected to that yall should too 😂
Alex Christian
2025-12-16 18:41:28 +0000 UTCyall gotta specifically do Gods Not Dead 2 because it involved courtroom drama lol
Conrad Elliot
2025-12-16 17:56:42 +0000 UTCI feel like he should have said something like "covid? I've got the universal vaccine. Jesus Christ."
Duncan
2025-12-16 16:53:32 +0000 UTCI would not have called that this weird Christian Nationalist propaganda film would be such conceptual soup. I am always amazed by people who grew up on Tarantino and The Office being self-referential and thinking that's all it takes to make art and/or comedy.
Verbose Minimalist
2025-12-16 16:43:37 +0000 UTCOh two audio clips in and this movie is fucking insufferable
Shugoshin
2025-12-16 16:30:50 +0000 UTCgotta love that the wife was a punching bag the entire time also I would love if you guys watched a corny hallmark movie that is completely unrelated to the supreme court
Camille Conner
2025-12-16 16:14:35 +0000 UTCyess it’s inspiring to them bc even this fcking ****** can further the aims of christianity since he just had faith & listened to god 🤍
r bow
2025-12-16 16:10:24 +0000 UTCHaha, this is fucking hilarious listening. I wanna watch some shit movies with the three of you.
Sam Ziemer
2025-12-16 15:18:02 +0000 UTCMy take, as someone raised evangelical and subjected to many of these movies: the missing redemption arc is probably supposed to be Joe's redemption in the eyes of god. Especially in modern, Baptist-type Christianity, they love a good "I'm a piece of shit but Christ does good works through me" story, leveraging the pieces of scripture that say god can love a sinner who opens their heart, and de-emphasizing the parts about the change that's supposed to come with that. So, Joe is still a piece of shit, but it doesn't matter because God is working through him. Also...none of the Christian men I knew would've found the naked camel lassoing anything but cool. Probably supposed to be comedic and went over the writers' heads there was anything problematic there lol
audioboy
2025-12-16 14:53:44 +0000 UTCLol the duck dynasty thing at the end like this is the big short and it's Margot Robbie in the bathtub
Jess
2025-12-16 14:18:11 +0000 UTCNot even joking, your commentary kinda makes me want to watch it. At least have it on in the background while I’m shopping.
Kirsten O'Nell
2025-12-16 13:57:51 +0000 UTCWriting so bad it becomes unintentionally subversive. Underwear/no underwear may be a minor detail to the camel wrangling story the movie opens with but it does immediately establish Joe as an unreliable narrator as he tells his life story. Since the film never presents Joe's life beyond "thing happens, Joe acts tough and cool", it definitely continues to read that way; like a guy in a bar who skated through life without direction drunkenly bragging about various highlights of his existence. I hate that I now have a morbid curiosity about how similarly bad the other films by the same director are, since he just seems like a vessel to keep roofs over the heads of washed up dipshits like Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain .
Mountain Dew Or Crab Juice
2025-12-16 11:55:56 +0000 UTC
