God's Country

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"God's Country features a remarkable lead performance from Thandiwe Newton, but the unfocused, predictable screenplay makes this film too dull to remember. Technically, it's one of the strongest movies of the festival. Gorgeous cinematography, sweet score, gripping atmosphere -- it holds the essential technical ingredients for a great film.

However, by attempting to tackle many different subject matters, Julian Higgins isn't able to properly concentrate and exceptionally develop a single one. In addition to this, the protagonist carries relatable motivations, but her consequent actions feel contradictory. The racism and sexism that she has to deal with are real, but her way of confronting these situations is far from exemplary.

Finally, the impactful ending beautifully works in theory, but since everything plot-wise is so unsurprising and slow-paced, the viewers will probably feel too tired to care by the end."

Rating: C.

College professor Sandra (Thandiwe Newton) lives alone in the middle of nowhere Montana after losing her mother. Two local hunters keep trespassing on her property. The confrontations slowly build. She's struggling with an unevolved superior at work. The acting sheriff is limited help. The actual sheriff is on leave after shooting a local.

This movie is quiet. In a way, it's too quiet. Newton is doing good quiet with simmering rage. The tree farm confrontation is good tension. So is the invitation into the trailer home. There are moments and scenes with great tension. Mostly, the movie is way too quiet and the tension slips. It needs to build the tension, but Sandra doesn't change. It's a little flat.

This movie is essentially an art house upsell of something like I Spit On Your Grave. About 30 or 40 minutes into it, when the professor meets one of the hunters in the little church and finds common ground with him (I won't spoil how) I thought the movie might turn into something redemptive for both of these characters. Nothing doing. Instead of such a turn, it devolves into stereotype and cliché, and exactly the end you could predict. You want Trump Country "deplorables" you got them. You want a clueless "woke" interloper, you got that. Yet in the end, all the issues are resolved with a shotgun, hardly any sort of politically correct finish. If the point of this movie is just an ironic play on the idea that God is nowhere to be found in that place, or in any of these people, the point is pretty overtly made. That doesn't mean it's bad or unwatchable. It's neither, but it's not gory enough to be a successful exploitation film, nor creative enough to be a true art film. It's nicely filmed and definitely conveys the damnation of its people and place through its cinematography, and while none of the main antagonist characters, as written, are deep, complex or unique, they are all well portrayed by the actors. A better example of something with a similar theme might be Wind River.

I get it. You should stand for something rather than fall for anything. Still, this lady was really pushing the envelope by escalating everything. I mean she was really asking for it. She broke more laws than the aggressors. Ironically, her past job should have gave her insight and made her smarter about it. Honestly, I don't know what the moral of this story is. I feel she should have put up a fence or moved. Why would any single woman live in the most remote area knowing there are few law enforcement to provide protection.? She had to have known how risky this would be. I'm a guy and even I wouldn't feel comfortable living in the middle of nowhere alone. To top it off, she threw her only friend under the bus. This is like watching any vigilante movie where the bad guys were not as aggressive as the vigilante. I dunno....

The entire 102 runtime needed to be chopped to a short film to keep this story engaging. At least 80% of this film was unnecessary, convoluted nonsense and filler that should've ended up on the cutting room floor. Don't even get me started on the ridiculously slow pacing and long dragged out and unnecessary scenes.

Too many points tried to be made, but none really succeeded - and in the hands of any decent filmmaker, it wouldn't have felt like such a chore to even attempt to make said points. Many scenes and dialogue were just nonsense and unrealistic, and just came and left out of nowhere. It was just sloppy sloth writing and directing that felt like none of it was edited, and random bits from other screenplays was mixed in the blender. And even then, it was all too predictable and cliched.

The worst part is, you'll invest all this time trying to stay engaged, but will be very let down with the lamest, simplistic and most cliched predictable ending. You'll cringe when asking yourself "that's it?". This type of story has been done many times before, and much better than this mess of style and filler over any real substance. The only redeeming qualities this film had was Newton's performance and great cinematography with breathtaking scenery. Just watch the trailer and the last 2 mins of the movie - there's your entire story.