Review No.133: God Bless America

Good old social satire a topic that's so easy to tackle in theory however in practice sometimes it all gets a bit muddled which to an extent is what happens in God Bless America. The film is the latest to be directed by Bobcat Goldthwait who in recent years has been responsible for some fairly interesting features, most notably World's Greatest Dad starring Robin Williams, however to most he will always be best known for playing Zed in the Police Academy movies. God Bless America stars Joel Murray, brother of Bill, as Frank a run-of-the-mill insurance salesman whose life starts to disintegrate after he is fired for innocently flirting with a  co-worker before being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. As Frank lives alone, his wife having divorced him and taken their child to live with her new hunky cop boyfriend, he spends most of his time watching bad reality TV while drinking countless beers. Though he has several fantasies about killing people in his life, most notably his horrible white-trash neighbours, he doesn't go through with it until he realises as he's about to die he has nothing left to lose. Frank's real bugbear is the disintegration of American society into a nation of hateful people who are always wanting something which he believes is best exemplified through the kids on My Super Sweet 16 so he decides to finish off a rather nasty spoil teenager who was the focus of one of those programmes. While carrying out this murder he is spied by one of her classmates Roxy  who is in awe of what Frank did and wants to join him on his spree which he eventually agrees to after she tells him that she is regularly abused by her trailer park mum's boyfriend. The film then sees Frank and Roxy form a sort of geekier version of the bond formed by Jean Reno and Natalie Portman in Leon with their prey being the rudest and crudest members of American society. Before the film's end there are revelations about Roxy's parentage and Frank's disease before the predictable final killing venue is decided upon.

The main problem with God Bless America is that it reminded me of about half a dozen films and TV shows that had dealt with the subject matter in a wittier or more insightful manner. In equal parts I found it reminiscent of Natural Born Killers, Office Space, the Hugh Grant film American Dreamz and even Charlie Brooker's Channel 4 serial Black Mirror. That's not to say that God Bless America isn't without it's merit with my favourite parts being the small spoofs of TV shows such as Jersey Shore or the extreme news broadcasts that the yanks get to experience on Fox News. There are also some decent set pieces including one in a cinema as well as the final few scenes which as well as being predictable are actually fairly funny. Though the jokes were obvious I found myself laughing a fair few times at the absurdity of some of the situations that the film set-up and also the believability of the obnoxious nature of some of Roxy and Frank's targets. Talking of Frank it did take me a while to warm to his character due to Joel Murray's detached screen presence however once he hooked up with Roxy the two bounced off each other well and it gave his character a new lease of life almost treating Roxy like the daughter he didn't get to spend nearly enough time with. I wasn't a fan though of the speeches that Goldthwait gives Frank to deliver at random periods throughout the film as they were mainly long-winded and hammered home a lot of the similar points. Though it's targets are broad and its conclusion is fairly predictable there was something likeable about God Bless America that kept me interested throughout. There were enough jokes to justify it being a dark comedy while the chemistry between Murray and Tara Lynne Barr was a winning one so even if it didn't become the great satire it wanted to be.

Verdict: Though a fairly all over the place film there is enough to like about God Bless America to admire it as a film that tries its best so therefore it deserves a score of 7/10