Review of God Bless America (2012) by Eric T — 04 Aug 2012

There is a visceral thrill to watching "God Bless America" if you sympathize with Frank and think that American culture is stupid, loud, and mean-spirited. Sometimes you just want it all to shut-up--and he went on a mission to shut it up.

The parodies on reality TV, American Idol, and Fox News are absolutely spot-on; and they are used to create the tension and frustration one might feel when they can't escape such vile nonsense. Now, is Frank a hypocrite for fighting obnoxiousness and hate with murder? Step outside the movie.

Frank is Goldwaithe's manipulated pupil, his antivirus, and he's performing his function of killing the virus. It's simply a fantasy of its author, Mr. Goldwaithe, and anyway, doesn't the murder grab your attention? Or his jail-bait teenage accomplice? Isn't the vehicle by which he uses to silence the madness also part of the criticism against American culture? What does it take to get one to listen? Anyhow, on a closing note, Joel Murray's performance as Frank was absolute comedic genius.

Though there are occasional pacing issues and the ending is unsurprising (though very satisfying), God Bless America gets the full rating for me for its direct, no holds barred criticism on American culture done is such a provocative fashion.