Film Review: God Bless America (2011)

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SYNOPSIS:

On a mission to rid society of its most repellent citizens, terminally ill Frank makes an unlikely accomplice in 16-year-old Roxy.

REVIEW:

“A Dream To Some…–A NIGHTMARE TO OTHERS!”
Merlin from John Boorman’s “Excalibur”

The television was too loud. It had to be it was competing with the screaming infant in his mother’s arms. The entertainment report was going on about how even more allegations of Michael Jackson being a child molester were coming out. In their Jersey shore attire the parents began to banter…

“Why don’t they just leave him alone all Michael ever wanted to do was make people happy.”

“People don’t really know what happened between him and those kids they weren’t there they are just a bunch of jealous haters”

“I hate people who say bad things about Michael Jackson.”

“I f*cking hate haters…”

The front door is kicked wide open and a portly middle aged man with a shot gun in hands blasts the entertainment new reporter in the face blowing the television to smithereens. Then he turns the gun on the father the shot gun rips open Daddy’s sequin Armani Exchange shirt and the exit wound is glorious red.

Now the gun is turned on mother and child. She screams and throws the child straight up into the air. The killer as if shooting skeet unloads the shot gun coating the mother in the blood of her child. Our killers face is calm almost happy in reflection of his good work…

He then awakens from his fantasy…

Folks this is the opening to Bobcat Goldthwait’s “God Bless America.” Now I enjoyed Bobcat’s tale of an alcoholic children’s party clown in “Shakes the Clown” and “Worlds Greatest Dad” reminded me thoroughly of my own joys of fatherhood but… Well I think I am in love with the highly patriotic and morally up lifting tale that is “God Bless America.”

Oh how do I love thee, how could I even begin to count the ways… This film is about how we should be reacting to consumer culture, which of course the only logical reaction is spree killing.

Part of me wants to compare this film to some degree to actions of the members of “Fight Club” minus the subtext of ambiguous conformity… While they had the idea of lets ruin the economy, “God Bless America” has the idea of let’s kill the rude, the shallow and the materialistic douche bags who care nothing for culture and take advantage of everyone else without shame and whose only goal in life is their own reality TV show and desire for self-aggrandizement.

Some reality T.V. people get shot.

Some people talking on cellphones in a movie get shot.

Some tea party mother f*ckers get shot…

Some Jersey Shore-esq mother f*ckers get shot…

Some Westborough Baptist Church kind of looking dildo’s get shot…

Some rich assholes get shot…

Some whiney kids get shot…

Some American Idol sh*t stabbers get shot…

Are you sold yet?

The tag line of this film is “Taking out the trash, one jerk at a time.” And the film does so in a fast paced joyous killing spree. This is easily one of the most fun films I’ve seen this year. It’s smart, witty and lots of people die. What more could you ask for?

Now the film has kind of an interesting cast of sort of recognizable faces. For starters in the lead roll of Frank their is Joel Murray who’s brother to Bill “I ain’t read the script yet for “Ghostbusters 3” Murray and Brain Doyle-Murray (“Cabin Boy,” “Groundhog’s Day”) and Joel has been around for a while too, like the 80’s. And on that topic for anyone who knows their campy 80’s comedies he started out way back in one of the best films ever centered around a boat race that takes place on Nantucket “One Crazy Summer” where Murray worked with Goldthwait for the first time. And if you havn’t seen “One Crazy Summer” and you enjoy light hearted 80’s fair it’s a great film to see and while most of the actors in the film where solid B listers of the time, such as: William Hickey, Joe Flahterty, Rich Little, John Matuszak, Billie Bird and Tom Villard. THEN where kind nobody’s who would still work today such as Bobcat Goldthwait, Joel Murray, Curtis Armstrong (a.k.a. “Bugger” from “Revenge fo the Nerds”) and quasi A-ish lister Jeremy Piven and the film starts then A listers John Cusack and Demi Moore. This was Demi Moor back when she was super-hot in the 80’s and Ashton Kutcher was still a sh*tty actor and swimming in back of his dads nuts.

BUT YEAH, So you might also know Joel Murray form “Hatchet” as the sleazy video producer but in “God Bless America” he plays an extremely kind man who is not a sleaze because more than once during the film 16 year old Roxy (Tara Lynne Bar) throws herself at him sorta…But the film refreshingly doesn’t do the same Lolita-esq twist that “The Professional” kind of tried to take (especially the European cut.) Tara does a great job at the roll, not much else to say about it though it’s not f*cking Checkov its Goldthwait. In this case her character simply becomes enchanted with Frank after she watches him shoot the bitchiest girl in her school…

Some people around X-mass time watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” I think that “God Bless America” is the film for the 4th July. After watching “God Bless America” I feel like there is a hope for our once great empire that had been dwindling since February 27, 2009* and Fox News became the highest rated news source in America… I’m proud to know there might be a return to morals in America … by means of spree killing…

See this film… It’s a beautiful portrait of how one man and a shot gun can change the world for the better… Then again the same can be said for Uwe Boll’s “Rampage.”

*February 27, 2009 is one of the few dates in history considered to be the creation of the modern tea party.

God Bless America (2011)