Cinema: God Bless America

Joel Murray, Bill's younger, but no less talented, brother finally gets the opportunity to play a lead role in Bobcat Goldthwait's latest picture God Bless America after appearing in a string of hit US television series such as Dharma and Greg, Shameless and Mad Men. Fans as we are of his previous work, we were not let down by a blistering performance from the soon-to-be quinquagenarian who plays Frank, a middle-aged Joe Bloggs with a job he hates and an ex-wife and young daughter who are not so keen on him either. But the strongest feeling of distaste in the film is that which Frank has for what his country has become.

An insomniac, Frank's condition is made even worse by the fact that he has some especially inconsiderate neighbours who render it all but impossible for him to catch any form of sleep whatsoever. Their behaviour personifies everything that he identifies as wrong with the United States, as does the constant stream of trash emanating from the television that he slumps in front of every night in an attempt to find some relief from his insomnolence. He has become tired of, and bitter about, the human cruelty, mediocrity, fakeness, impersonality and lack of responsibility that seems to fill the world and that actually garners praise amongst the majority of the population. Never having experienced this until relatively recently, this decent, hard-working and honest man begins to feel as though it is him who is not normal.

When Frank loses his job due to a trivial, but technically fire-worthy, incident, he becomes ever more disillusioned with the world around him. After watching an episode of a popular music channel TV show which follows the planning of a huge birthday party for a spoilt 16-year old girl, he is disgusted by just how much the teenager is disconnected from reality and unappreciative of what she has. So he decides to do something about it: kill her.

He then meets another young girl of the same age, Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), who persuades him to let her join him on a mission to eliminate from this world all the people who they feel deserve to die. The assignment takes them to various spots across the country and they slain mercilessly anyone who, according to them, is responsible for making the world an increasingly unbearable place in which to live. They somehow get away with a series of assassinations, all the while reveling in their new found release and at the same time constructing a relationship with some interesting dynamics.

Of course their adventure can only go so far but it comes to an apt and fitting end in a place which epitomises their contempt for the modern obsession with nonsensical celebrity worship.

The obvious contradiction and beautiful irony in the film is that although the duo consider the whole world as mad, gunning people down for seemingly petty reasons is too far from normal. Still, one cannot help but have a huge amount of sympathy for them both, despite their overreaction, which is why the film is actually rather quite comical and not at all macabre; it's rare that audiences laugh out loud upon seeing, for example, a baby blown to bits by a rifle!

One of our favourite films of the year, the two leads give outstanding performances and Murray was just born to play his role. The message is both blunt and particularly close to home which is why we think that everyone can appreciate the picture and use it to take a closer look at how we should be behaving as human beings and what is really important in this world.