FILM REVIEW: GOD BLESS AMERICA

GOD BLESS AMERICA (15)

Starring: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr

Director: Bobcat Goldthwait

Running time: 105 minutes

Released 4th July  (Cinemas) 9th July (DVD)

Released by:StudioCanal

"Do you remember when eating rats and maggots on Survivor was shocking? It all seems so quaint now..."

Middle-aged Frank Murdoch (Joel Murray) is having a bad day. After falling asleep in front of a television spewing hate-speech and brain-free commercials, it starts by simply having to listen to the uncool chatter around the water-cooler, as fellow-workers chortle at the previous night's talent-free TV talent show... and gets progressively worse as the secretary has him fired for looking at her, he hears his ex-wife is getting re-married and his bratty daughter won't come to stay with him unless he buys her a new phone. Coming home to yet more vapid television he dreams aimlessly of killing his obnoxious neighbours and anyone who makes his day even harder. The next day... his doctor informs him he has an inoperable brain-tumour.  Frank is tempted to end his own life, but first... he needs to make a statement.

God Bless America ramps up a gear with the arrival of teenager Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr in an engaging, provocative, star-making performance)  who positively encourages Frank to be mad as hell and not take it any more. Witnessing Frank's ultimately effective, but fumbling, shooting of spoilt-rich-girl-reality-star 'Chloe', Roxy believes she's found a kindred spirit/devil in Frank and encourages him to begin a crusade against cultural apathy and irritants rather than just being remembered as a poor loner who probably killed a TV star out of sexual frustation. Against his better judgement - and feeling he has nothing to lose - he lets Roxy travel with him and before long the bullets and blood start flying as the duo get dynamic with their enemies, domestic and iconic.

"Despite some  early promise, the film feels like a wasted opportunity, a vanity project to venting rather than a rallying call to anger. Its grand-gignol isn't grand enough and its reach exceeds its wrath... " 

The film, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait - a million miles from his Police Academy acting days - feels like a mash-up combination of Falling Down and Natural Born Killers by way of Mark Millar's Hit Girl (with perhaps a touch of Leon) - skewering modern culture by having two unlikely individuals team up and taking it to violent extremes... not so much lampooning the borders of modern life as driving a monster-truck through them at high speed while chewing gum and flicking the middle finger. It's part guilty pleasure, part messy bucket-list and therefore comes with the obvious accusation of having its cake-and-eating-it.  

And that's the film's problem. Satire has to be precise, slicing with the precision of an ironic scalpel and here the director positively swings wide with a heavy club, hoping to hit a home-run but often sending the ball flying in disparate directions. From scene to scene it's not always clear when Goldthwait is having satirical fun or merely venting his spleen and creating the cinematic equivalent of putting a :) or LOL at the end of each tirade to give it the weaker parody-as-punctuation defence. (A scene where Roxy rants about Diablo Cody's film Juno - the writer being "...the only ex-stripper with too MUCH self-esteem" - is a nicely scripted-line, but it's hard to tell whether Goldthwait is using the reference with love, irony or  pure venom - and that echoes through the entire production). Yes, there's some nicely-pitched pitch-black humour to be applauded here, but there are also scenes where we have to wade through what amounts to a rant to get to it. As much as Frank and Roxy have a list of most-deserving targets, so does Goldthwait but the film doesn't have the precision gun-sight it so desperately needs. Unlike the far superior and less manic Falling Down, where Michael Douglas' outrage grows organically and somewhat understandably over a single day, God Bless America goes for more lazy, obvious victims. Thinly-veiled Kardashian and American Idol characters are already parodies of themselves and here just feel TOO disposable for us to care as much as we should.


On the positive side, the central performances from Murray and Barr themselves are notable, each hinting at more beneath the service than the script itself demands and the film is bound to give them the greater attention they deserve. Barr captures the damaged teenager ingenue vibe perfectly and Murray maintains sympathy for his character by being able to articulate the anger and frustration to which the rest of the film plays lip-service.

Though not without its merits and despite some early promise God Bless America is a only an adequate enough time for its hundred minutes and feels like a wasted opportunity - a vanity project to venting rather than a rallying call to anger. It's grand-guignol isn't grand enough and its reach exceeds its wrath, stroppily sauntering to a climax that looks like the budget ran out. One could argue that it's deliberately skewering itself in its stylistic-choices, but that feels more like a get-out clause than an intended metatextual sleight of hand. Ultimately, the film turns out to have less to say than it first appears. What is it rebelling against... what have you got?

Just before reviewing God Bless America, a glance at the television revealed a real-life news network running a feature on 'Horoscopes and your Health' in which one of the perky presenters and the great unwashed were informed that 'Your digestive system is very influenced by the sign of Cancer...'  followed by pundits sending their entire staff to claim they'd second-guessed the outcome of the US Healthcare Bill.

In an age that drives Frank to distraction, it all brought a whole new meaning to Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

3/5

God Bless America will be in UK cinemas for a limited run from 4th July  and available on DVD and download from 9th July. A special showing with Bobcat Goldthwait in attendance takes place at the Prince Charles Cinema in London on 4th July. Tickets are available through: www.princecharlescinema.com