God Bless America, a comedy by Bobcat Goldthwait, is easily my favorite movie I’ve seen this summer (and yes, I saw Batman). It stars Joel Murray and Tara Lynne Barr as Frank and Roxy: a pair of spree killers who are fed up with the cruelty, ignorance, and selfishness of modern America. Fed up with their own lives, they run away together on a quest to find and destroy who they believe to be society’s most “disgusting” people.
It may be a little hard for some to stomach at first. Obviously, it’s super violent- especially the first scene- but you shouldn’t let that keep you away from this great film. If you can grit your teeth through it, you’ll be rewarded with laughter and a rare shoot-em up style comedy that can’t help but make you think.
My Take
God Bless America has everything I love about the modern critique. It’s blunt, witty, and often points the finger (or, in this case, gun) at itself. Now let me be clear: I am in no way condoning the mass violence these characters are carrying out and I don’t think the movie is either. This comedy is a release of anger and frustration from a section of American society that has grown to see their country in a new, mostly negative way.
As Americans, and especially as college students, beginning to enter the real world, we have certain expectations of what America is supposed to be. For a lot of us, America is turning out to be quite different than the country we thought we lived in as children. America the beautiful; the great mixing pot of the world where democracy is at it’s finest and there is equal opportunity for all… that’s what they said ,right? In reality this country is collapsing, it’s fraught with racism, sexism, xenophobia, corruption, and apathy. Goldthwait is trying to shock us out of a kind of cultural suicide.
If you’re interested in checking out God Bless America, you can find it on Netflix.
What’s you take on the movie? Is Goldthwait right? Have your feelings about this country changed as you’ve grown up?
