God Is a Bullet

What I saw was a great story ruined by amateur-hour filmmaking. Shockingly, Nick Cassavetes - the same guy who directed The Notebook, directed this mess. You're supposed to get better the more films you make, not worse. A fifth grade drama class could've come up with a better production.

This was so poorly and lazily directed and written, it was riddled with plot and technical issues. It was tedious and exhausting without enough emotional depth, nuance or palpable suspense. It's a grimy, violent exploitation movie dressed up pretending it has something to say, yet fails to yield any visceral emotional impact. Even some of the dialogue was absolute nonsense, moronic and cringe, worthy of eyerolls.

There were so many filmmaking errors, they started off as hilarious, then became annoying. At about the midway part of the (two hour) film, the scenes where Case and Bob are in the pick-up, Case's nose cut and black eyes vanished for a couple of camera angles, then magically re-appeared. Then we're supposed to believe that Nikolaj's character got all these tattoos in one sitting, and they all healed with no redness or scars. It doesn't get any more lazy and amateur-hour filmmaking than that. Even the action scenes at the end where laughable and defied logic and reasoning. The filmmaking also lacked urgency, was bloated, boring for the most part, and poorly paced. I pity those that had to sit trough the longer version of this nonsense.

Aside from the outstanding performances, and decent cinematography and score, this was a huge misfire plagued by amateur-hour and lazy filmmaking. God Is a Bullet may be loaded, but it's only firing blanks. Too bad a better filmmaker wasn't hired to make this film, it had tons of promise with its based-on-true-events story.

Wow, I didn't expect that.

First off, make sure you watch the original version of this movie that was released in theaters. It's 2 hours and 35 minutes. There is a censored version out there that's only 2 hours long. The parts they removed for violence/gore were some of the most shocking (in a good way) moments in the movie.

And they remove entire subplots that are important to the story and character decisions. I see a lot of people complaining that it doesn't make sense or is disjointed. That's what happens when you strip away 22% of a movie.

God is a Bullet is far from perfect and not everything works. But there is so much that does work. I was fully invested and never bored through this longer runtime. There are multiple jaw-dropping moments and crazy scenes.

And it never feels like it's holding back. People who are easily triggered might not be able to handle it, and I don't mean that as an insult. But I like my movies not to have limitations and am annoyed with how often studios play it safe with PG-13 movies.

The whole cast does a good job, but Maika Monroe shines. And Jonathan Tucker always has small roles but always kills it. He fully transforms into his character.

I had a great time with this movie and would watch it again. It took me on an emotional ride and I wish I chose to see this in theaters. (1 viewing, 7/25/2023)

Award winning novel very well adapted. Film conveys saga of complexity and brutality of similar films like American History X.

Not at all drawn out, the world building is expansive. S

This film is a stunningly well done work based on the ancient theme of descent into the dark world in order to pull a victim back out. It deeply mines themes of revenge and rage. It is quite violent. But none of the violence is actually gratioutious.

The villains in this are not cardboard cutouts that most audiences are used to. I don't mean they are good and bad, I mean the amount of raw villainy is intense.

How often do you see a hard bitten, jaded urban vice detective, who presumably has seen everything, shaken and shocked?

On what you want.

I'll tell you right off, it's not shakespeare. It's not christopher nolan...OR barbie. It's not spielberg. There's a decent amount of gore and bloodshed. So if that's what you are in it for, you shouldn't be too disappointed.

I don't understand all the reviews that trashed the guy from Game of Thrones. As if THEY should be deciding which roles he should or shouldn't be taking? He was decent in this role. Probably why the movie works at ALL. Although the bad guy was believable, too. I'm thinking the movie was too long. There ARE parts that could've been edited without hurting the story at ALL. But...it is what it is. A violent movie about a lot of ugly sort of people. Including the people on the periphery.

So. It wasn't terrible. I can't see how people wouldn't know what they're going into, watching this film. Maybe they can only justify seeing it by trashing it in a review... there were a few loose ends, i thought, that could've used tying up. But, since it was 'based on a true story', maybe that was the part that was true. Things don't always wind up the way we'd like them to in some movies...

Based on the rating and tons of negative reviews, I expected this to be a major dissapointment. However I decided to give it chance because of Nicolaj Coster - Waldau, who has surprised me with some excellent roles before (Shot Caller). I understand people's frustration as they have seen the version that is 2 and a half hours long, but there is a one of an hour and 47 minutes which is excellent. If you are a fan of 80's and 90's action/revenge /old Mad Max movies vibe, give this one a chance (at least the shorter version) and you might find yourself entertained and pleased. At least I have....