'TAMMY FAYE' AN EYE OPENER.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

``The Eyes of Tammy Faye'' is a documentary about the makeup queen of Christian broadcasting, Tammy Faye Bakker (now Messner), which means that it is consistently amusing. The reversals of fortune and horrific humiliation she's suffered in the dozen years since the scandalous collapse of the televangelist empire she ran with ex-husband Jim Bakker has done little to dampen her cartoonish charisma and flibbertigibbet watchability.

But the film is also a one-sided effort to paint Tammy Faye as an innocent victim of both her untrustworthy first husband and calculating, big-time religious broadcasters in general. While this is a lot of fun as far as it goes - what's not to like, after all, about a movie that has nothing to do with Larry Flynt but is still convinced that Jerry Falwell is a two-faced, power-mad snake? - the unbalanced effort to paint Our Lady of Perpetual Mascara as some kind of martyr plays hagiographic at best and as dishonest as the ugliest ``PTL Club'' excesses at worst.

Of course, I didn't think the recent Hank Greenberg documentary suffered an iota from relentless hero-worshiping. My preference for that film probably says more about my own biases than it does about the flaws of ``Tammy Faye.''

Directed on video by Brits Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato and narrated in a mildly ironic but mostly sympathetic tone by RuPaul Charles, the movie charts the Bakkers' rise from goofball Christian puppeteers to goofball gazillionaire chat show stars and theme park operators. According to this, there would be no religious television without them, as the Bakkers were instrumental in getting both Pat Robertson's and the clonelike Paul and Jan Crouch's TV ministries off the ground, too. We're informed that all of the superstar evangelists smeared here declined to be interviewed for the documentary.

Anyway, things were going along profitably until the arrival of Jessica Hahn, a relentless and apparently quite good investigative reporter for the Charlotte Observer (during a recent meeting with a still-hurt but forgiving Tammy Faye, he asks her to autograph copies of his PTL scandal book for a charity auction, which she does) and slavering packs of media hounds and sanctimonious finger-waggers. Jim gets a huge prison sentence for defrauding his flock, Tammy remarries their defunct Christian amusement park builder (who winds up incarcerated, too), and we get to chuckle/marvel at her various attempts to repackage herself for a secular media career.

Tammy and the filmmakers try to make the case that the garish Bakker enterprise was destroyed not so much by Jim's malfeasance as by more conservative Christian forces that disdained their efforts to include gays and other sinful types under their big, religion-can-be-fun tent. Probably true to some degree, but one would like to think some of the enmity had at least something to do with good taste.

While Tammy Faye makes a less-than-convincing sacrificial lamb, she does register as a resilient individual who still finds strength in her faith and - except where the few people who won't acknowledge their sins against her are concerned - has taken that forgiveness lesson deeply to heart. ``The Eyes of Tammy Faye'' can't really decide whether it loves her for her real human qualities or because she's a whole national park of camp opportunities.

But it does know that she's divine.

The facts

--The film: ``The Eyes of Tammy Faye'' (PG-13; nudity).

--Behind the scenes: Produced and directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. Released by Lions Gate Films.

--Running time: One hour, 29 minutes.

--Playing: Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Rialto, South Pasadena; Los Feliz 3, Los Feliz.

--Our rating: Three stars.

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The newly brunet and visually subdued Tammy Faye Bakker (now Messner) is the focus of a new documentary.