God Bless America is the fourth film by Bobcat Goldthwait making his name as someone who is not afraid to deal with the blackest of black comedy and hover his cynical eye over many a subject. God Bless America sees Bobcat take on his biggest challenge yet America itself.
Frank, a middle aged man going through divorce, soon to be fired, and pronounced terminally ill is our protagonist reaching the end of his tether with his increasingly annoying neighbours. Frank dreams nothing more than taking a shotgun and blowing them away, and he decides to just do that and taking the crass, degrading state of America’s pop and media culture with him.
Goldthwait takes on many of America’s, and England’s for that matter, biggest pet peeves, be it America’s Got talent, Bill O’Reilly esque political analysers or even just people who give high fives and talk in the cinema, they’re all in Frank and his spritely teenage accomplice Roxy’s crosshairs and Goldthwait is bringing them all down in this film. The script is scathing and sharp, and a real sense of shame and hate can be seen and you cannot help feeling this is a pretty personal story to Goldthwait.
Frank’s main reason for killing is that everyone has just stopped being nice, too concerned with media and technology and the classic five minutes of fame he flicks through TV channels full of mindless dribble which is all too familiar in this generation, and again you cannot help but feel this is Goldthwait crying out to this generation and saying put your phones down, stop trying to get the easy way out and just live life.
Both Joel Murray and Tara Lynne Barr are fantastic casting and you feel as if they really make the characters bringing them from page to screen brilliantly especially in the case of Tara Lynne, in contrast to Murray’s rather drool laid back approach to everything she is just the polar opposite bouncing around the screen in almost every scene with a fantastic youthful energy, showing us that not all teens are like Chloe; Frank’s first victim and an obnoxious 16-year-old on a my sweet 16-esque show who is in hysterics that her parents didn’t get her the right car for her birthday.
Despite it’s fantastic script and acting, God Bless America does have a few slight flaws. We never really feel as if Frank and Roxy have any sense of pressure on them from the police, a police presence is only really seen within the film’s closing scenes and the amount of people they kill it feels a tad unrealistic, unlike their spiritual peers Bonnie and Clyde the tension is never there almost as if the two of them could just keep on going until no one is left!
God Bless America is a fantastic social commentary on the current state of media and its control over everyone and you cannot help but feel Bobcat’s conviction for the film and his message is clear as day with this film. Let’s just hope it does not give anyone any ideas to call up arms and take a pop at Simon Cowell and the like!
Overall Verdict: A great commentary on the current state of our generation this is for people who love their comedy as black as it can go, God Bless America is a fantastically acted and brilliantly directed social satire that is not to be missed!
Special Features:
Trailer
Reviewer: Gareth Haworth