7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.3 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Loveless, jobless, possibly terminally ill, Frank has had enough of the downward spiral of America. With nothing left to lose, Frank takes his gun and offs the stupidest, cruelest, and most repellent members of society. He finds an unusual accomplice: 16-year-old Roxy, who shares his sense of rage and disenfranchisement.
Starring: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr, Melinda Page Hamilton, Mackenzie Brooke Smith, Rich McDonaldDark humor | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Comic-turned-director Bobcat Goldthwait’s last film, World’s Greatest Dad, was a black comedy about the
postmortem beatification of a horrible teenager who accidentally dies from autoerotic asphyxiation. If you thought that was
dark, check out his followup, God Bless America, which opens with a dream sequence in which a screaming baby gets
thrown into the air and pulped by a shotgun blast, sending blood and bits of diaper spraying down in slo-mo like a particularly
gory snowfall. The material, as they say, isn’t for everyone.
But this isn’t some thoughtless, shock-for-the-sake-of-shock viscera-fest. God Bless America is actually a smart if
blunt-forced satire, repeatedly bludgeoning junky pop-culture until it’s twitching out on the floor. And by junky pop-culture, I
mean vapid reality TV and glorified karaoke contests, bratty teenaged entitlement and blowhard pundits on cable news.
Goldthwait’s thesis, if you wanna call it that, is delivered by his schlubby protagonist Frank—played by character actor Joel
Murray—right before he opens fire with an AK-47 on the live audience of a show called American Superstarz:
“America has become a cruel and vicious place. We reward the shallowest, the dumbest, the meanest and the loudest. We no
longer have any common sense or decency. No sense of shame. No right or wrong.” Of course, complaining about cultural
decline while enacting bloody vigilante justice puts Frank on shaky philosophical ground, but I think most of us would at least
agree with his argument, if not his methods.
About to strike...
God Bless America was shot digitally and ports easily to a 1080p/AVC encode that's framed in the intended 2.35:1 aspect ratio. For the most part, the image is free from distractions—no DNR, no edge enhancement, no excess filtering or oversaturation. I did spot quite a lot of blue-tinged source noise in certain scenes—which has a tendency to soften the picture somewhat—but from normal viewing distances this isn't especially apparent. Overall clarity is better than merely respectable but short of tack sharp; fine high definition textures are almost always visible—in facial and clothing details, especially—but shallow depth of field sometimes contributes to slipped focus. In his commentary, Goldthwait notes, "If any of our scenes seem a little out of focus, it's because our cinematographer was super stoned," but I doubt purple haze contributed to the picture's occasional haze. The film's color palette is often bright and gaudy and even a little ugly—see Frank's Hawaiian shirts—but I see nothing wrong with how it's presented here. Skin tones are balanced, contrast is good, and the grading has plenty of density. No overt compression problems either. Like Frank, God Bless America ain't eye candy, but it's presentable.
The film arrives on Blu-ray with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that's functional but not quite impressive. The dialogue in some of the outdoor scenes seems low—even slightly muffled at times—and probably should've been re-looped in an ADR booth. This isn't a widespread issue, though, and most all of the conversations between characters are capably recorded and balanced well. The mix itself is a little anemic for a film that includes such prominent gunplay. Dynamically it's punchy enough, but the rear channels surprisingly don't get much action; you'll hear some quiet environmental ambience and occasional effects from the surrounds, but that's about it. Mostly, they're used as bleeding room for Matt Kollar's excellent score, which features almost hymn-like organ arrangements that provide a somber background for the onscreen chaos. The disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, which appear in easy-to-read white lettering.
What's great about writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait is that—like, say, Louis C.K.—he isn't afraid to let his comedy be dark, depressing, and brutally honest. This time around, he's taken aim squarely at pop-culture, pulling the trigger on our collective rudeness, unintelligence, and willingness to be so easily entertained. God Bless America is unavoidably controversial and certainly isn't for everyone, but if the sheer existence of Jersey Shore and toddler pageants and famous-for-being- famous celebrities drives you mad, the film will certainly deliver some cathartic carnage. Magnolia's Blu-ray release is strictly average when it comes to tech specs, but the disc includes loads of special features, including a great commentary and a lengthy behind-the-scenes piece. Recommended!
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