God Bless America

Written and directed by American comedian Bobcat Goldthwait comes this tale of Frank (Joel Murray), a downtrodden sad sack of a man whose miserable and lonely existence away from an estranged wife and daughter is accompanied by insomnia, noisy neighbours, reality television in all it's most evil manifestations and an ever increasing lack of patience. After losing his job and discovering he has an inoperable brain tumour, Frank decides he's had enough of the ignorance and general lack of moral principles he sees permeating through everyday American life and sets about directly addressing the problem…with a gun. Aside from the overly graphic and wanton violence, this is a film with a lot to say. It's almost as if writer Goldthwait is himself getting stuff off his chest that's been festering for years. Much of the dialogue is indeed bitingly funny, including some incisive rants about the pernicious nature of American Idol type singing competitions. The film does sometimes forget itself (one holiday montage sequence seems a loose fit) and some of the murders which Frank and his willing side-kick Roxy (Tara Lynn Page) carry out might threaten to cancel out the more intelligent aspects of the message for some. What is certain is that God Bless America will divide opinion. Frank's a walking contradiction, a liberal man who fights his cause with right-wing methods to find a stage to air his liberal views. This is a film for everyone who's imagined but would never carry out. For those who want to instantly silence that barking dog down the street that's preventing valuable sleep before that big presentation at work the next day. It's for those of us who sit silently in cinema seats respecting other people's right to enjoy the experience only to have ignoramus's gibbering on mobile phones or kicking the back of your seat. While the film might draw criticism for it's depictions and excessive"preachiness", i found it agreeably acerbic. I wonder if Simon Cowell feels the same way.

What a great movie. It's rather as if Goldthwait has made an answer to Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers by way of Mike Judge's Office Space. Through the eyes of Joel Murray's Frank, we see a variety of society's ills and thankfully, Goldthwait doesn't dwell on them. To do so would be like gawking at the stupidity when you walk into a Walmart; it's just going to make you dwell longer at the stupidity on display, and you are still in a Walmart.

Instead, we get one of those movies that you either are along with or you aren't, you get or you don't. If you get it, you wish that Frank had a few more monologues, if you don't, you'd think it was advocating random shooting sprees.

Thankfully the script and Murray's brilliant portrayal of Frank has him as a principled, moral character who has his suicide interrupted by one terrible reality TV show too many. Along the way he teams up with a psychotic schoolgirl. He's rebelling violently about what society has become, she's rebelling against what society is.

It isn't a huge film, without a large budget, but well made. I felt that it worked best compared to Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, which showed spree killers as celebrities. In God Bless America the characters lament that they haven't even made the news. But in the end, Stone's film glories this shallow quest for fame while Goldthwait's film answers it, showing what happens to America when everyone is unkindly reaching for it.

The problem with many reviews is that we seek to 'analyse' and not just accept. We look for hidden agendas instead of just taking something at face value. This film is a gem...the main character and his life were easily acceptable and plausible and his outlook on modern American life whilst predictable, knowing the movie's theme...was perfectly understandable. There is a wonderful dark humour running throughout the story and whilst it does stretch the imagination boundaries at times you think to yourself 'so what ..I'm enjoying it'. I could not think of one victim in this film that I also wouldn't have minded bumping off and Tara Lynne Barr is perfect as Frank's young accomplice. One of my favourite scenes involved Frank's visit to his doctor but then I always did have a twisted sense of humour. I recommend you watch this if only as a release valve for your pent up frustrations with modern society and TV talent shows.

Instead, I liked it and would gladly watch it again. God Bless America had so much potential. Its first half an hour or so goes as you expect, over the top dark humor with non-stop truth hitting relentless social commentary and then...Roxy walks into the movie. From this point on, unfortunately, without saying much, the movie falls into several paradoxes and loses its focus.

At its core, GBA is a good social satire with nonstop commentary on the problems with pop culture and society, but on the same coin, the movie tries so hard that it feels like a rant by an angry liberal rather the good satire it initially set out to be. Furthermore, Roxy becomes one of the characters you want dead as the movie goes and her character, along with her and Frank's relationship, appears so idealized and forced, that it just affects the movie for the rest of its running time.

The good, however, lies in the great shooting scenes, some of the great commentary made by Frank (most of what Roxy says makes you roll your eyes if not question what in the world the movie was going for), the dark humor, the targets for satire, the over the top story, its entertainment, and overall its a solid 9/10 movie but...

The bad lies in the second act, on Roxy's faulty and forced character, its endless rants between our two main character that makes you want them to kill themselves as the next person on their killing spree, the people targeted (whats wrong with high fives and country music? When did this movie become about taste rather than appropriate satire part?) and so on...it just bit itself in the tail.

I really wanted to love this movie. I almost did. Instead every time I went to smile and applaud the commentary, something matter of taste or the character discontinuity got in the way...good movie, definitely one everyone should watch, but sadly, for what it could have been and set out to be, very flawed.

I saw this movie's premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. I loved it. Bobcat Goldthwait has given us a hilarious comedy that perfectly satirizes our self-centred, celebrity-obsessed, uncritical age. Throughout the dark comedy Joel Murray delivers a perfect performance as one of the last thinking men, who has grown weary of life and society. In between the action and the comedy, Joel Murray's character delivers scathing indictments of society that had the Toronto audience break out into spontaneous applause. Besides being hilarious, this movie is really an interesting exploration of the insensitivity and thoughtlessness of modern popular culture. This movie is the antidote our "reality show," celebrity-obsessed, know-nothing-and-proud-of-it culture. The film's outlandish violence perfectly captures Horace Walpole's epigram, "This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel." Unfortunately, as the movie points out, few people are now capable of either thinking or feeling.