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| Release: 2011, Rating: R, Runtime: 105 min. |
God Bless America is a politically incorrect film, that won’t be for everyone, but it sure was a blast for me…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: On a mission to rid society of its most repellent citizens, terminally ill Frank makes an unlikely accomplice in 16-year-old Roxy.
After Frank gets some bad news, he decides he’s had enough with rude people, reality TV stars and anyone else that is just plain annoying or mean. Along the way of cleansing the U.S.A of these certain types, he meets Roxy, a too smart for her own good teen, who tags along and shares a very similar view of society.
Within the first 10 minutes of God Bless America, a certain scene will happen and this scene is going to decide whether or not you are prepared to sit down and watch the rest of the movie. It’s a completely wrong and obscene scene (which I won’t spoil) and yet I laughed out loud and couldn’t believe they just showed that. Sadly, God Bless America isn’t able to completely live up to that one particular scene for the entire runtime, but still does a pretty good job of entertaining you with a bunch of other, almost just as politically incorrect stuff.
Joel Murray (Frank), gives an outstanding performance of someone most of us can relate to. The shit keeps piling up and the world is getting worse and worse. At a certain point, things pile up so high, he just can’t take it anymore. Tara Lynne Barr’s Roxy, is a very smart, yet very cynical teenager and I thought it was hilarious that at the point in the film when I was thinking of her dialogue as something from Diablo Cody (Juno), Frank calls her Juno. It’s almost like this movie was reading my mind!
God Bless America does a perfect job of making you root for these two vigilantes and at no time does it take itself seriously. Here are two people going on a rampage, driving a bright yellow sports car and not once do they hide their faces. At no time do we ever see a cop, or any sort of hunt for these two. This is an extreme fantasy world and almost feels like a dream Frank is having, albeit a sick twisted and often times hilarious dream.
If had to list some complaints, it would have to do with the long stretches of nothing. There are times where absolutely nothing is happening and you just want them to move along and get with the shoot shoot, bang, bang. Also, I wish the ending, which in itself was a lot of fun, was a little longer and went a little more crazier with the setup. Of course, the movie has already done so much crazy stuff that people are going to bitch about, having more carnage at the end would’ve probably been overkill.
Director, Bobcat Goldthwait, has done a great job at trying to piss off a lot of people and it’s sad that some stuff in this movie will be seen in a bad light, due to certain real world events. Yet, it just goes to show, that even the most far fetched scenarios are possible. I myself didn’t take this movie seriously at all and just saw it as an extreme fantasy a lot of people have had at some point in their life. If you look at it like that, you might be able to get through it, without your undies getting all tied up in a knot.
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