The Bible and Gun Club

I have to admit I've never seen the complete movie from end-to-end, because I seem to keep catching it in sections when the Indie channel substitutes it for something else that didn't work out. That said, everything I've seen of The Bible and Gun Club is intense, gritty, funny, outrageous & pathetically real. In a way it's like a cross between Salesman (the Maysles brothers) and Gummo. It deserves some sort of recognition or award for bringing attention to a very sad and dangerous and banal condition that exists all over this country. On a cinematic level, it works so well because of how uncinematic it is.

If you live in Los Angeles you've met him: the velvet-pants-wearing, sideburn-covered, Swingers-derivative hipster maximus. He is all over every frame of this indie geekfest, which combines lame steals from Der Quentin (black-suited dudes who look too much like Lawrence Tierney wielding handguns) and the Coen Brothers (lotsa wacky wacky behavior all around). Shot in ugly black and white, it follows a bunch of extremely unsightly middle-aged "bible and gun" salesmen, and pauses to leer at quadraplegics, homeless nutsos, ZZ Top-like Texans, trailer trash, and--you betcha!--porn stars. This is the kind of thing for guys who think pictures of their grandfathers in dumb leisure suits standing next to a Dodge Dart are a hoot and a half. Having said all that, it's queerly impossible to stop watching it.

Beyond that, it's scary - scary because there really are people like this, as abundant as ever, from one end of this great land to the other! As inframan noted, there's an element of Gummo in this movie. Not that it's as completely off the wall as that one is, but it's close. The alternately jazzy and rock and roll music sets the mood perfectly, and the black and white makes it hard to place this movie in a specific time period, adding to the overall sense of surreality.

What's incredible is that someone could think up something this crazy at all. It elevates the non sequitur to an art form. Watch for running gags surrounding "soiled" towels and sebaceous cysts. I give it an 8, primarily for originality....