God Is a Bullet

God Is a Bullet

Based on true events and the novel of the same name. Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 156 minutes
  • Genre: Action, Crime, Horror
  • Stars: Jamie Foxx, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Paul Johansson, Brendan Sexton III, Ethan Suplee, January Jones, Jonathan Tucker, David Thornton, Garrett Wareing, Tonya Cornelisse, Robert Craighead, Nancy De Mayo, Kola Olasiji, Xavier Declie, Virginia Cassavetes, Nico Galán, Chloe Guy, Danny Minnick
  • Director: Nick Cassavetes
 Comments
  • Guanche48 - 29 May 2024
    You're Crossing Over!
    I think this movie has a slightly low rating. I found it entertaining and I also loved the music in general, especially the country music. Due to the subject matter we already know that this is not going to be an elegant or stylish story.

    This movie proves effective in spots, due to the efforts of its committed actors. The violent sequences and its arid desert locations certainly provide a lot of gritty and creepy atmosphere.

    The evil cult members, the murderers, are not entirely realistic, although they did scare me at times. They are like outsiders with the sort of abandon you'd expect in a snuff film. A brand of ultra violent that comes across like overkill.

    This is one of the reasons why I don't like the title 'God is a bullet', it doesn't seem appropriate to me at all, it's almost ridiculous.

    The Danish actor Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Bob in the movie, is a treat to follow, he does a great acting job.

    The film is, after all, a country road trip that is easy to follow and entertaining until the end. Yes, it is perhaps a bit long, but the plot and action combined with the music make it bearable. I am not disappointed.
  • alex_with_a_P - 14 January 2024
    Different kind of beast
    God is a Bullet is a movie that is trying to be many things but falls short of being truly powerful. In fact, the first ten minutes start promising, it doesn't waste time to get into gear. But soon after that it starts to meander a bit aimlessly. I was especially disappointed that the story didn't commit to the black magic angle they teased in the beginning. There were vibes of True Detective season one where we go on a dark journey down the abyss. Unfortunately the movie gets more predictable and trivial the closer we reach the end. Again, the overall pace is very meandering and the story is handled more like a checklist unfortunately.

    What deflated a lot of tension were the dumb decisions the characters made at every corner. All the time they keep talking about how dangerous it is to go against this cult and most of the time they just barge into a place unprepared and are surprised that they get caught with their pants off. All the while the movie is trying to be dark, gritty and authentic but treats the viewer with completely over-the-top moments or a character out of an 80's film. It created a weird disconnect. Maika Monroe's character "Case" seems intriguing at first but there's not much substance in her portrayal. Her divine change of heart moment is explained away as a random encounter in a grocery store. Truly underwhelming. And then there are the exchanges about faith and religion which come off very superficial and smarmy. I realized that this is basically the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo without the intriguing murder mystery (they even lift the epilogue). Instead of a good thriller we get lots of gore but it is so obvious CG that it takes all the enjoyment out of it.

    The movie has some nice imagery and colors here and there but it is mostly filmed in drab colors. Nikolai Coster Waldau is a reliable actor but he already did the grieving father who's out for revenge in 'The Silencing' which was undoubtly a better and much shorter flick. Here they push it to the extreme by making him play a desk clerk who turns into Charles Bronson. Not in an interesting manner, and way too stretched out with it's two and a half hours runtime. The movie is severely lacking in the action and thriller department. Cassevettes neither commits to an authentic tone or goes completely off the rails like an Craig S Zahler with "Brawl in Cell Block 99". For more dark and authentic revenge thrillers I would rather recommend Blue Ruin or Destroyer(2018). This one was disappointing.

    5 out of 10.
  • xnicofingerx - 23 November 2023
    Not always convincing, but courageous and tough!
    Monroe visually disfigured in a film that is no less disturbing in terms of content. The entire film is a freak show full of broken people, scum you'd never want to meet in real life. It was not without reason that "God is a bullet" was shown at the Fantasy Film Festival. A road trip into the abysses of America, the likes of which you've never seen before. Close to reality? I can't say, just not hope, but fear. Definitely interesting, also entertaining, and definitely scary. There are also a few shortcomings: the cast is not of consistently high quality, quite a few of them get caught up in absolute overacting, and the hard effects are unfortunately not handmade, clearly recognisable as CGI. But Maika pulls it off as always, a convincing performance with absolute commitment. And of course the P18, fortunately not a soft touch for the sake of mass appeal.

    By no means a 5 at IMDB, more like a 6.5, for me subjectively still a 7.