God's Lonely Man

Thank God this great film came to Mexico. It's the kind of movie that deserved better luck in the whole world. The history is terrific and touching, it's about a lonely junkie in his way to self-destruction, then he knows a girl as troubled as him, who -someway- gives hope to his life. It's by far the best 90's update for Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", and the "romantic" story reminds me of Luc Besson's "Leon". A must see if you like movies for a reason beyond pure entertainment.

This is definitely the 'Taxi Driver' of the 90's. The acting was first rate in this film which makes me wonder why I have never heard much of the lead actors, and even more so the director. No stereotypes or formulated storyline, just gritty realism in this film which is a breath of fresh air.

Recommended

In the years since I saw this film in 1997, it remains a dark, desolate, haunting experience which repeated viewings have not diminished. Its a strong film which gets inside the alienated yearning of a central character, Ernest, whose love and passion is undercut by self-hatred and fear of his own invisibility. The resemblance to Travis Bickle from "Taxi Driver" is a welcome reminder that the cinema can still seek out the painful, destructive and lost characters that were far more frequently and successfully envisioned in 1970s films. Its not really a pastiche or mockery as some critics on its release argued. Rather its a re-examination of the place of someone like Travis Bickle in another time. Its also based on a true story. This gut-wrenching film has a fearsome score reminiscent of "The Exorcist" (even the credits evoke that film). It succeeds best in those moments where Ernest and 15 year old Chrsitiane seek to establish a truthful relationship. Its not an easy film and the performance of Michale Wyle is jarring on a first viewing but in time the truth of his performance shines. Morally the film is complex and the violence is excessive.

The other poster pretty much outlined the plot, so I will not repeat it here.

Heather McComb is the only actor I knew in this movie and is the main reason I watched it. Because of a previous role as a 14 year old 4 years earlier, it was a bit of a stretch to believe the now 18-19 year old actress as, again, a 14 year old character, Christiane. However, she did convey some juvenile personality and was very good overall.

The male lead actor, Michael Wyle, was pretty good too, and had many quirks and mannerisms that (I guess) are consistent with his coke head character, Ernest. I wondered throughout the movie how he could afford all his drugs with his crappy job.

The movie is clearly influenced by Taxi Driver, and in fact, I was going to call this review "Taxi Driver Without the Taxi". There is a narration that sounds very similar to Travis Bickle's voice and his comments, and the older male develops a relationship with an underage prostitute, eventually gunning down all the perps. It is not a straight ripoff or homage, but you easily make the connection.

There is also some influence by the book/movie "Christiane F." (about young druggy/prostitutes in Berlin) and the director reveals his one-time near obsession with the book in the commentary. (Great book by the way, but very depressing even though it has an eventual happy-ish ending).

Surprisingly, there is no nudity or sex, although some of the scenes are inside an adult bookstore. The whole subplot of the "special" porn movie that Ernest eventually arranges to see in order to locate the perps is overdone and a bit of a let down (it's 5 minutes long we are told, and costs $1000 to see it once, and $5000 to buy). The bad guy is "sure" this is what Ernest wants to see, although the subject matter is never discussed. If I was paying that kind of money, I would want to have an idea what it was about. I won't spoil it for you, but I found the 30 seconds we are shown to be not erotic. Like I say, this major subplot is very weak.

Not being religious myself, there were a few religious overtones and symbols that were not crystal clear to me.

I rate the movie at 3 stars, a little better than average, but this is also a DVD review, and here is the bad news.

The "behind the scenes featurette" is worthless. It is just rough VCR quality footage of people milling around. No narration, no introduction of the unknown people we are seeing, and worst of all, the sound is very bad.

Although there is a commentary, there is no movie sound at all, so you don't know what the characters are saying, and therefore in many cases, we don't know exactly what the 3 commentators are talking or laughing about. Normally, we could just pop the subtitles on while listening to the commentary but there are no subtitles available on the DVD.

Bottom line - Great movie for fans of Heather or Michael, decent movie on its own, and a pricey DVD for such badly done extras.

'God's Lonely Man' is allegedly "inspired by fact" so when watching this obvious homage to 'Taxi Driver' it raises some interesting questions regarding fact and fiction, what is real and what isn't. Almost any movie compared to Scorsese's masterpiece can't help but come off second best, but Gaspar Noe managed to make a brilliant and disturbing movie inspired by the same source (1998's 'I Stand Alone') so there's really no reason why Von Zerneck Jr couldn't have done the same. Unfortunately 'God's Lonely Man' doesn't entirely convince. Maybe it is Michael Wyle in the lead role, I dunno, but something just doesn't ring true, and his character's eventual freak out seems forced and unreal. Much better I thought was Heather McComb ('Apt Pupil') who gives a strong performance which shows a lot of promise. The best scene by far in the film was the movie screening involving an unusually cast but very effective Paul Dooley ('Sixteen Candles') and the very creepy Tom Towles ('Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer'). That was powerful, shocking and unexpected. If the rest of the movie had been as good as that it would have been another story, but as is, this is an uneven, sometimes dull and frustrating movie, which even so JUST has enough good bits to make it worth watching. Many others think much more highly of this movie than me, but I can't say it impressed me all that much.