God Is A Bullet

God Is A Bullet has been universally panned by critics everywhere but I have to say it's a very underrated film, the problem with it is that it has so many elements that could make it a truly great film if it did away with a few things that drag it down and expanded upon its characters a bit more. 

The premise is that a policeman has to team up with an ex-satanic cultist to find his daughter. It has an Americana/noir/punk aesthetic that I really liked, admittedly the film is style over substance but the style and atmosphere of the film is really captivating, we are thrown into a grimy world of gutter punks and satanists that's extremely over the top and as dirty and nasty as any good grind-house inspired film is.  

While the two leads aren't given too much in the way of backstory (I could have done with a bit more on this front) Maika Monroe is iconic as recovering former cultist Case Hardin, she's a complete badass in this movie. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is also very good as renegade cop Bob Hightower.

One of the strongest things in the movie is their relationship, yes the dialogue is cheesy and they're essentially one dimensional characters but it works with the way the story is being told. It's a throwback exploitation film not Schindlers list. Its the type of dialogue that you can tell was written to be poetic as is the case with most noir films, it is purposefully bleak, over-done and contrived. To add to the positives the soundtrack is excellent, the song choices along with the general tone of the movie reminded me very much of the Last Of Us part 2. It's not that good mind, but with a couple of major tweaks it really could have been. 

Onto the negatives, this movie has a very weak villain, Karl Glusman is terrible as Cyrus, the main antagonist and Satanic cult leader. I get what they were going for, he's supposed to be a Charles Manson-esque unpredictable psychopath but Karl Glusman just doesn't have the acting ability to pull it off convincingly. He comes across like a character that is desperately trying to convince the audience of how evil he is but doesn't manage to present anything close to the air of menace necessary for such a dark film. He was passable at best. 

Overall I think this film could have been amazing 
but what we got was a pretty good but very flawed revenge/exploitation flick. That said it definitely doesn't deserve all the hate it received, it's not a bad film at all, only a good film hiding a very good film within it.