God's Country

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....

I came in hoping for a good story, but left shaking my head at the many lost opportunities to make it one. If you like being preached at for an hour and 43 minutes, this may be the film for you.

Besides the incessant lecturing, the movie had the pacing of a 78 played on a 45 player, the villains were all caricatures of bad people, and the protagonist was a preachy, "I know better than you about everything because" kind of a person.

The most interesting part of this movie was when I dropped a Milk Dud between my legs and spent 10 minutes groping around trying to find it.

See this movie only if you hate yourself.

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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.

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.

God's Country is a slow burn but quite an impressive debut feature from Julian Higgins, beautifully enhanced by cinematographer Andrew Wheeler. Thandiwe Newton is good in the lead role of college professor, Sandra, who faces not only the power of the Patriarchy in the workplace but the existential threat of violence living alone and isolated on her Montana property. When she pushes back against two brothers who feel they have the proprietary right to hunt on her property, she is set on a collision course with the local men. An ex-New Orleans police officer, she's no pushover but you will have to decide whether or not her final resort to violence is a justifiably measured response.