MovieChat Forums > God Bless America (2012) Discussion > Please respond with thoughts

Please respond with thoughts

posted 11 years ago by ijmunoz
6 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this flick and I thought it was enjoyable in terms of shock value. The baby at the beginning, the movie theater, pretty much all of it. I thought it was funny. I figured I would come on this board to see what you all thought of it and I read about everyone pointing the fingers at Left Wings, messages behind the film, arguing, blah blah blah.
Here is something that I loved:
He was buying a gun from a racist guy. Did Frank think that the guy was mean? He threw terms around like n!gga, Jew, and made fun of Germans. In the end Frank put up with all this meanness and still bought the gun from him. I don't know if he shot the gun/drug dealer or not, but I figured he let the guy go. And why did he do that? Did he let the guy live because he got what he needed out of him? Is there a message there?
In the end, my take was that in America, there are way too many opinions and there are so many stances that other people only care about their own and not any one else's. Isn't that what is going on today anyways? You got religions lined up that don't want to hear about each other's point of view. You have politicians pointing fingers at each other and not listening to each other. There are far right winged blaming far left wing, and vice versa. And even here on this board, you have posts from people attacking others for their point of view about the message of this film, or what they got out of it, or what was shocking and what wasn't.

[–] analog_timepiece 11 years ago

thoughts? aint nobody got time fer dat!

[–] ijmunoz 11 years ago

maybe not for your thots as s hole

[–] plumlogan 11 years ago

I watched this movie once. If I watch it again and think differently I might come back and explain it, but my first reaction was pretty simple:

It's a fantasy movie, and I imagine less of an allegory than a straight-forward wish fulfillment for Golthwait. I've liked him since I was a kid and still catch his comedy from time to time, and he's a pretty extreme guy, both in his politics and his art. In age he's chilled out a bit, but in this film I think he simply stuffed his hand into a grab bag of stuff he hates (or gets on his nerves, if hate is too string) and cast a surrogate to roll play getting to kill the people responsible for it. I think trying to find any deeper meaning or more nuanced messages will only result in discovering some breathtaking gaps in logic and probably some hypocrisy as well, which is why I doubt there is anything deeper than what the movie delivers on the surface.

[–] stackloads 11 years ago

The racist/bigot things been around forever, if that was his trigger he would have started way before this.

That was more of an issue for Michael Douglas in Falling Down.

This character grew up with that, and tho he knows it's wrong, it's not a front-burner issue for his rage.

[–] ijmunoz 11 years ago

I see what you mean about trying to make logic out of the film. u are totally correct.
And as for the film Falling Down; to be quite honest, I thought the same thing while watching God Bless America.
Thank you for your replies.

[–] sherrykearns 11 years ago

watching the movie which i first thought was a comedy, i realized about 2/3rds of the way through that this was how the minds of those people who go postal work. first it's fantasy, like frank fantasized about killing his neighbors and office workers, then fantasy and reality get all confused.

he's probably really fired, but what the dr tells him is up for doubt after the tumor statement because no dr. talks like frank's did to him

do we believe he shot a 15 year old in cold blood? and thereafter everything becomes a jumble of possibilities.

no way a real car theft would be ignored like this one was, so that's fantasy, too. how about the guy frank murders in the diner? real or imagined?

then there's no tumor? how about those migraines? they're probably real.

finally frank emerges on the other side of his imagination with an ak 47 in his hands and starts shooting because he can't tell what's real from what his mind has created.

and besides, he really does want to die and has since the beginning of the movie.

i can believe that the way those crazy people who shoot up a mall or school started out the way frank did at the beginning of this movie...terribly unhappy and the world around them just pushes them over the edge they're standing on.