Title: God bless America
Year: 2011
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
Writer: Bobcat Goldthwait
Runtime: 105min
Cast: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr, Mackenzie Brook Smith, Melinda Page Hamilton, Rich McDonald
Produc.: Darko Entertainment
In God Bless America, Frank (Joel Murray),
an unemployed misfit, and Roxy (Lynnne Tara Barr), a rebellious teenager, unite
to carry out what they both believe the U.S. has been needing for quite some
time: to end with all the filth.
Many
would probably see this film as a respite from the typical cinematic
entertainment. God Bless America
seems to be the work of a director really angry with the Americans. More
precisely, we are talking about Mr. Robert Francis Goldthwait, better known as
Bobcat Goldthwait, born May 26, 1962, no more and no less than in Syracuse,
"United States". What leads one to wonder what might he feel,
exactly, for his country. We might assume that it embarrasses him.
In God Bless America
are precisely revealed, a number of reasons why any lucid U.S. resident
could think, "God damn this country full of ignorants, materialistic and
egocentric people." The film is, quite simply, the critique to a society
in which certain sectors have been quick to fall into the worst of the
decadences, and this, for example, expressed through consumerism, the disrespectful
citizen and the television programs, that rather than encouraging the good
individual growth, we could assume they have proposed to finish with any posible
evidence of thinking beings. Bobcat does not waste a single minute and
addresses some of the flaws he sees in his people, without beating around.
Frank
is a divorced office worker, of about fifty years old, whose former wife is a
dim-witted, his daughter a spoiled child, and his neighbors, a couple of
feeble-minded, unable to quiet a baby that keeps crying all the time. All of this
panorama not only lacks of positive aspects, but has also turned Frank into a
time bomb. The entire society is full of inepts and someone should take hands
in the matter.
Already
in the first scene Frank is far from being relaxed. While watching TV (with all
the crap that is in its channels) he must bear with the, already mentioned bastards next door, who are on the other side of his living room´s wall. Frank
just wants some peace before returning the next day to his cubicle, surrounded
by more idiots.
Bobcat
takes this wonderful opportunity for us to see what is happening, internally,
to Frank. Suddenly he has entered armed to his neighbor´s house, to do
something good for humanity and end both with them and their baby in a radical
way, at gunpoint. Fortunately, as soon as we see the situation we come out of
it, as to be assured that everything has been a montaje, constructed in his
fantasies.
It
is highly attractive the way the director describes it to us, making use of the
"idiot box", the loss of values and
the unfortunate course this society has taken. All Frank has before his eyes
can be summarized to vandalism, jokes to politics, discrimination, advertising
guidelines that set out the garbage that is sold today on the market, and the
most amazing of the new television era, destructive reality shows. Of those that
have the power of reducing owr reasoning to the size of a hazelnut.
Frank,
who suffers from migraines, sees a doctor to be told that he has a tumor and
has only little time left. After the news, the most immediate option is
suicide. The thing is that the whole society has gone to hell, and given what
awaits him, sees no reasons to delay his death any longer.
But
suddenly, a TV show captures his attention. The turning point occurs precisely
when, through a reality show, Frank finds that there are still reasons for
delaying his own departure. In this particular reality, some girl called Chloe (Maddie
Hasson), a blonde and attractive young teenager, with a well maintained body
but horrific nature, demonstrates such a lack of brain that makes it even more
visible when she says: "My name is
Chloe, I live in Virginia Beach, and everyone loves me because I'm so pretty".
Then we see her parents and understand that, "like father, like son."
Frank certainly has had enough.
If
there was ever a citizen that dare to call out "God Bless America",
then one of two options: either he was raving mad, or perhaps he have had found
sane and decent people, but who had then been reduced by a large majority of
lunatics. Erroneous or not this phrase, Frank is willing to give it meaning,
and his first goal will be that so pretty girl.
From
now on and through black humor, is that are mixed some of the best examples of
a daily reality, which many will, surely, feel identified with.
Soon,
Frank meets Roxy, a young girl with whom he shares in many ways his general
view of things, except that there is in Roxy a much more settled position. He
wants to choose their victims and then just finish them up, and she instead
intends to move faster and go right now to sow panic, willing of adrenaline, to
kill and then celebrate it.
Roxy
does not hesitate to join him in what is going to be a massacre in the style of
Bonnie and Clyde, except, without the banks. Both are even wearing hats like
those of their predecessor, criminal duo. Later, in a motel, Frank acquires better weapons, running from a pistol to a shotgun. And now, yes ... the real
fun begins.
Bobcath
Goldthwait ultimately created two characters that are able to perfectly
represent human idiocy. Frank, who has his problems, of both health and for
being a misfit, and who has not ocurred nothing better than, before dying, going
out shooting a gun. And Roxy, who is so mad as a hatter that, to start with,
has fled from two parents who loved her and now suffer her absence, arguing
that she was abused at home. That is to say that, the same ones who have
proposed themselves to clean up the scum, are nothing but a part of the
problem.
Once
the film reaches its end, we have met a director who did not spare anyone and
who pretended to call the attention of those who had the fortune of not being
part of that majority with limited capacities.
On
my part, not being myself a resident of the United States, or being neither of
American origin, little is actually what I should say in the matter. It's easy,
sometimes, to talk or criticise from the
outside, but very preferable not to. Bobcat, in his viewpoint is very clear,
but I initially take it as just that, a viewpoint.
My rating:
7/10
