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It is very rare for me to enjoy a movie to the point of wanting to discuss it.
The fact that I wanted to re-watch it immediately after seeing it for the first time was also almost unheard-of.
I think part of what made me like "God Bless America" this much was the fact that it belongs to a sub-genre I like to call "Oak & Bush", or an old, bitter character joining forces with a younger one and bonding over shared trauma or experiences to deliver something truly unique. There aren't all that many examples I can quote on this, and that kills me a little... because those stories are often great, relatable and deserving to be told. Among the ones I can name, however, you have home runs like "The Last Of Us", indie masterpieces like "Wildlike", and even mainstream phenomenons like "Zombieland", but God Bless America deviates from that formula by making our characters both easy and hard to root for, making the viewer unsure on whether they should even like these two. I like that a lot.
Our... Hero.
Let me explain: While the relationships between Ellie and Joel, Mackenzie and Rene and even Little Rock and Tallahassee are sweet and wholesome (if a bit psychotic), the one between Frank and Roxy (our GBA duo) pulls a 180 and becomes a little wholesome among all the psychotic things they do. It's such a breath of fresh air as to result intoxicating, and I like how the movie never attempts to humanize these two psychos, nor paint them as heroes. Yet, that's not the whole story, either -- there's a ton of context (and dialog) in this almost two-hour-long flick to tell you that our leads absolutely have a point, but go for it in such a bad way as to almost rendering it moot. Almost.
This is a very ballsy movie, and commits to ideas and techniques that more mainstream media tends to run away from... in panic. We literally get to see one of our main characters make his Death Row bid in the first three minutes of the movie, right after the opening credits have just stopped rolling. We also don't get introduced to our second lead until the half-hour mark. This means that one of our "heroes" is missing for a big chunk of the film, but also that we really get to see the motivations that fuel the other one before they team up and decide to double the fun. I really like that angle because Frank's story is the important one here and it needed to be fleshed out like that in order for me to care. Roxy is great and all, but she's little more than an enabler once she joins the struggle -- a fun, energetic, delightfully evil enabler, but a secondary protagonist nonetheless. The focus of the story is always on Frank, and that's where it should be.
This movie is extremely offensive and explores (or at least touches upon) a ton of topics that would make pretty much anyone watching it at least a little uncomfortable, but it doesn't do that for shock value or just to be edgy... instead, it throws all those topics so lightly and effortlessly as to fuel the main characters' murderous rampage because, you see, they are both tired and disappointed with the world they live in and consider that it is way too rotten for them not to (literally) gun it down. As a viewer, you can object the way the movie addresses of all that (and you probably should), but you are also invited to at least see Frank's point of view as he goes on a solo crusade against a country that has fallen in disgrace, at least according to him. This is all topped very early into the movie when he gives a bit of a speech to a coworker about the state of affairs in the world... a speech that promptly gets him fired when combined with BS workplace politics. This is just last of a series of tremendously infuriating straws thrown his way and involving stuff like uncaring neighbors that just wouldn't shut up, screaming and partying the whole night and that would also box his car in every time they park their vehicle, an ex-wife who couldn't rule over their baby daughter to enforce a law-mandated visit regime and even someone so bland as to report him to management for harassment whilst also smiling to his face every time they interact. At some point you just snap, man... and snapping he does.
"All systems go
".It happened the only way it could have had: by having the (now jobless) Frank wasting in front of the TV and seeing just how bland, vapid and mechanical everything is as he zaps through dozens of channels pushing the most idiotic content in history, all whilst irksome news and "tweets" from the audience scroll by at the bottom of the screen. The thing that pushes him over the edge, though? A reality show in which a spoiled little brat throws tantrum after tantrum to her loving --if stupid and permissive-- rich parents because they don't get her exactly what she wants for her Sweet 16s party, even having an actual breakdown over them getting her the "wrong" luxury car. For a tired and pissed off character like Frank, this is enough justification to get his gun and deliver justice... and that's when Roxy enters and doubles our fun.
By this point Frank has already learned that he has a brain tumor the size of a golf ball and that he doesn't have long to live, so he's all-in on his one-man war against a world that he feels has failed him at every turn, and so he targets this insufferable girl as the first target of his long rampage... only that he messes up spectacularly by completely botching the poetic execution he had planned, after having handcuffed her to the steering wheel of the car she hated and then getting a burning rag on the fuel tank, which promptly falls off and burns him a little as he tries to get it back in there, causing him to panic and shoot her instead (in front of witnesses) and running away like a caricature. This is all witnessed by Roxy, who just smiles like it is the funniest thing she has ever seen and then proceeds to track him down in an attempt to join him.
These movies are often at their best once the bonding starts in earnest.
... One way or another.
What I like about Roxy is that she represents something that absolutely does exist in the real world: a spree/serial killer groupie, and plays this part to perfection, getting access to Frank's hotel room and then proceeding to jump on his bed like the little ball of excitement she has become as she asks for details about the killing and then starts yakking on and on about all the other people they should kill, getting told off by Frank for being too annoying and getting in the way of his own offing. I like what follows because, once again, is actually quite a ballsy move for the movie to pull: Roxy doesn't play the classic card of trying to talk him out of it, or even attempts to persuade him to stop a little and reconsider... no, instead she mocks his farewell note and asks if she can watch, even getting a makeshift poncho done so she wouldn't ruin her clothes once the deed is done. This is so utterly funny as to deactivate the entire situation without compromising it, and it's the kind of curveball that the movie throws so confidently as to compel me to write this whole thing in the first place.
Once the two decide to band together and fight back against the world, the movie really starts shinning, but in an unexpected way: convinced that he has only a few weeks to live (at most) Frank just wants to get his hands dirty and impart some twisted sense of justice, whilst Roxy (being a teenager) lives in the fantasy of being part of a spree killer duo, even checking the news constantly to see if they had been noticed yet. It's a wonderful touch because it shows the separation between the two whilst also thawing their strained relationship and allowing it to blossom... "Oak & Bush" stories are often at their best when they reach the point when the two outcast finally decide to act as a team, and while this one certainly doesn't have the emotional development of Mackenzie's and Rene's relationship (but it is really hard to beat Wildlike), it feels just as earned.
(Continues below...).
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. Time to finally watch it.