Hey Jimmy you'll be glad to hear we still have a few drive-ins locally.
I really wanted to like this movie. I loved Goldthwait's last film -- World's Greatest Dad -- a scathing critique of contemporary culture as well as parenthood and what it takes to get noticed (let alone loved). I also loved the trailer for GOD BLESS AMERICA. If you haven't seen it, it neatly encapsulates what the film is about, but also gives it a high-speed, pitch-perfect tone. Estranged from his young daughter and ex-wife, fired from his work on a ridiculous technicality, and beset on all sides by the loud, crass, obnoxious death rattle of American Culture, gravelly-voiced Frank finally snaps when a callous doctor informs him that he has an inoperable brain tumor. He decides to spend his remaining time on Earth cleaning house, and thus begins a cross-country murder spree, with Frank gunning down everyone from rude theater audiences to double-parkers, as well as some big dogs, such as an inflammatory Bill O'Reilly clone and the cast and fans of American Superstar (an American Idol spoof).Anyone with half a brainwave will have some sympathy for Frank, if not a hidden desire to see his vengeance take some shape. The trailer really milks this and milks it well. The movie ... not so much.It is almost as if Goldthwait came up with the idea for the trailer first. What works about the film -- Frank's descent into madness -- is mostly tip-toed around. Great pains are taken to show us that Frank is, at heart, a decent guy, and the movie does everything in its power to paint him as sympathetically as possible. The world Frank lives in is a nightmare full of loud morons and entitled screaming, and when Frank finally rants against it, his speech is perfectly articulated, obviously rehearsed, and just as obnoxious, in its way, as the Me-Me-Me culture it rails against.For a movie about a serial killer, the film moves sluggishly. In between Frank's self-righteous monologues, there are very long shots of Frank driving or sitting in his car, always accompanied by loud rock music with lyrics that pretty much spell out the emotions you're supposed to be seeing in Frank. The self-righteous monologues get even more intolerable when Frank is joined in his quest by the young Roxy, a Juno-esque character who gets an entire scene where she rails against the movie JUNO and explains in great detail her love of Alice Cooper. Roxy hardly feels real at all. It is as if Goldthwait created two avatars for his personality: the half that is sad (Frank) and the half that is angry (Roxy). Roxy pushes Frank's quest to ever greater extremes, but her motivation in the film never makes any sense, and she seems more like the devil on Frank's shoulder than the cool, witty, anti-establishment teen she's supposed to be.The movie fails most of all because it waters-down its own satire. If these characters were not presented so apologetically or with such slick soliloquies, if they were presented even just fractionally as a part of the problem, then the movie would have a story, characters, and a message worth thinking about. Frank occasionally has chances to move the story into areas more fraught with questions, complications, and intrigue -- his ex's new hubby is a cop, Roxy is just as obsessed with the media as the people she's always complaining about, Frank's own daughter is slowly turning into the same type of person he starts his murder spree with -- but just as you think the film is setting Frank up to face some serious questions, it veers back into music video wish fulfillment.Goldthwait made this film for one reason: he wanted to put onto a screen the stuff he probably spends a great deal of time thinking to himself. The reason why Alice Cooper is a rock god. Just exactly what's wrong with Americans and American culture these days. All of the people who deserve to die violent deaths -- most of whom, by the way, are conservative, Fox News types. Instead of using this opportunity to show all the ways the world is screwed up -- not just from the "pop politics" (both right and left), but also from the people who rage against the rage, who scream about the screaming, and who hate all of the hate -- this movie sticks with one note, and it doesn't even play it very well or consistently.Watch the trailer, close your eyes, and picture all the people YOU think deserve to die. You'll have a better time than if you watch this film.
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Topic: God Bless America (Read 3826 times)
