No God, No Master

The start of the movie is crisp and taut, and lays out a tragic crime and some capable characters to solve it. Unfortunately the film quickly loses its way, snarking into class warfare, and derailing completely into the fever swamps of apologetics for Anarchism. The latter comes complete with drippy lines from Bakunin (although nothing of his hatred of "blood sucking" Jews).

After all too much of this, the plot tension over the dramatic opening crime is squandered, replaced by obvious preachy vignettes designed to push the concept that the 'real' villains here are the thuggish cops and the rich. They have to put in yet another crime to recapture any sense of purpose after the class warfare lecture. Unfortunately, this little pick up is immediately metamorphosed into another political lecture, complete with printed jabs at J Edgar Hoover.

In summary: Unsatisfying and trite.

Obviously this movie is made by someone with a great love for the Italian community, or rather what was the Italian community during the years of emigration in early 20th century, who are now integrated citizens and part of the USA. Just like the Irish, who came before. And everybody else, who followed.

The USA is founded on emigration. On people coming to USA to seek their fortune and thus providing the labour, on which the modern age was build. That's a lot of eyes, but unfortunately the stories told from those days are mostly the same, and in the same historic perspective.

This movie narrows the focus to depict a fragment of the battle to define exactly what democracy is - and who gets to define it. Labour unions are at the forefront of this battle, recognising the oppression that makes a few people very rich and powerful enough to bend the government. For example the banker J.D. Rockefeller, who was able to call in national guards to terrorize and kill his striking miners, who were kept under slave-like conditions.

One can never see the whole of a story, without losing important details. But "No God, no master" manages very well, I believe, to show how both the powerful and the powerless are only just people, and how bridges of understanding can be build through simple acts of diligence and kindness.

Besides being presented with a less knows aspect of the story of how the nation was build, I loved the feeling of being "back then". Indie movies can't recreate and build fake streets, but rather than resorting to CGI like many Indie movies (and over-funded movies too - neither with quite satisfactory results) No God, No master makes do with camera angles, select streets and plain good storytelling in frames to create the illusion of streets from a 100 years ago.

My only critique was a tendency to take "tension music" right to the edge. I would say this was unnecessary as the plot was sufficient to keep me interested and leaning forward.

All in all a decent movie I have no problems recommending. 7/10 for just making a good movie.

I'm not going to research who was behind the making of this movie but it appears to me they are showing that people like Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, and their ilk, along with one of the craziest, most corrupt man in our history, ol J. Edgar himself, were perpetrators of the biggest mass theft and suppression in the history of the world. Thank goodness this movie is speaking up for the have nots. And, this was also the beginning of the police being the protectorate of the "good" white folk vs. those "immigrants.", or darker skinned folks. Which side are you on. That prob depends on whether you like this movie or not.

As I've read this film was made in 2009 and coundn't found a distributor for a longer time, a five years. It's not surprising at all, because it shows the system how it was, and actually how it is today. Also, it shows the historical figures of USA, as were J. Edgar Hoover and Mitchell Palmer, and the real picture of the Democratic Party, mostly financially supported by Rockefeller. At the end we can read conclusion what happened and what are some intentions to be done, and to be honest, it makes sense. David Strathairn's portrayal of anarchy fighting detective, William J. Flynn, is good, but for that role it would be better that he got some weight.

This movie started off with a bang , and we have crack FBI agent Flynn investigating a bomb in 1920 New England. Strathairn is always fun to watch, and is utterly convincing, but why he took this insulting script is beyond me. The film quickly devolves into "big bad businessmen vs little immigrant worker" propaganda of the sappiest kind. Set pieces and the lead character's side romance with his neighbor Conchetta (the Irish gets together with the Italians)are fine, as is the casting (with the exception of Flynn's young wooden protege, also an "Italiano"). The direction and pacing are also good. The film bravely insinuates (in)famous anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Sacco and Vanzetti. But the script moves away from detectivework and finding the culprits (there is very little detail given, to preaching about the dangers of nativism, and treats the anarchists as one-dimensional heroes, instead of the violent murderers they very possibly were, which I found insulting and spoiled the movie.

Don't expect a detective movie; expect a cringey sermon.