‘God Is a Bullet’ Review: Nick Cassavetes Delivers a Blood-Soaked Highway to Hell

Dennis Harvey
·5 min read
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Adapted from the author’s 1999 debut novel, “God Is A Bullet” is the first screen translation of a work by one Boston Teran, a prolific but pseudononymous scribe of popular page-turners. Those tomes have been well-received by thriller fans, though others have speculated they might be a genre put-on penned by possibly more than one well-known literary figure. Nick Cassavetes’ slick adaptation certainly maintains the book’s mix of lurid incident and pontificating pretentiousness — albeit without the kind of intensity that might have made this far-fetched story credible, or the atmospheric style that might’ve pulled it off as a fevered nightmare à la David Lynch instead.

These 156 minutes, with cop Nicolaj Coster-Waldau and escaped captive Maika Monroe pursuing the cult of devil-worshipping scumbags who’ve kidnapped his daughter, are not exactly dull. But they are rather ludicrous, without being much fun. It’s hard not to imagine this overlong, often cartoonish bloodbath making more sense as a 1970s drive-in flick, or a direct-to-video potboiler from the ’80s era of “Satanic panic” — either way, at greatly reduced length. Cassavetes and company may be reaching for some kind of Grand Guignol epic here, but the trashy material stubbornly refuses to expand accordingly.

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After an opening sequence in which a tweenage girl is abducted by heavily tattooed bad hombres in broad daylight outside a New Mexico supermarket, we meet police detective Bob Hightower (Coster-Waldau), who is not on the case — as his superior (Paul Johansson) reminds him, he is a mere “desk cowboy.” But Bob begins investigating these disappearances anyway when his own 14-year-old daughter Gabi (Chloe Guy) becomes another victim, seized from home while his ex-wife and her current husband are savagely murdered. Manson comparisons are duly made in the press due to the cult-like trappings of these deeds. After several weeks without a lead, inked-up young woman Case Hardin (Monroe) contacts the cops offering pertinent information. Bob is desperate enough to bite, despite her own long rap sheet.

Turns out she is a runaway from “followers of the Left-Handed Path” she thinks may be behind the crimes, recognizing telltale signs from police photos. She convinces Bob (if not the viewer) that his only chance of saving Gabi lies in teaming up with her, rather than involving the authorities. To re-infiltrate the group, she starts tracking down old associates, including Errol (Jonathan Tucker), who owns the kind of bacchanalian biker/punk/whatsit bar that only exists in movies. For our hero to pass as a viable fellow traveler, he must get some tattoos himself at the hands of Jamie Foxx as The Ferryman, a good-bad guy so ill-defined (unlike his insistently displayed pecs) you’re never quite sure why the actor signed on for such an extraneous role.

Inevitably they do attract the attention of the really bad guys, led by Karl Glusman’s Cyrus. Ethan Suplee, Brandon Sexton III and Gina Cassavetes play other leering members of this freakazoid squad, whose precise occult beliefs are never specified. But as if the target audience were Pizzagate adherents, it is taken for granted that such interests would naturally dovetail with raping, torturing and murdering children for “death rituals,” as well as terminating anyone who gets in the way.

These characters are such caricatures of evil, they seem to have stepped from the retro vigilante-exploitation likes of “Death Wish” sequels, “Class of 1984,” and the stupendously sleazy 1991 Brian Bosworth vehicle “Stone Cold.” Unfortunately, “God Is a Bullet” seems to think it floats above the realm of cheap thrills, even as the blood trail grows so wide we can’t believe every badge-carrying lawman in the entire Southwest isn’t giving chase.

We know this because Bob, who describes his turf as “a small Christian community,” keeps talking about faith and God all the time. This is usually countered by perpetually potty-mouthed Case dropping some nihilistic cliché, her big philosophical moment involving the titular insight. While director Cassavetes holds things together well enough technically and tonally, there is a weird disconnect at the core here: He’s made a film that keeps evoking religious values, while at the same time wallowing in gratuitous yecchiness — particularly violence against women, though implied sexual assault is mostly kept off-screen.

The carnage in this unrated feature is borderline absurd (some involving less-than-premium CGI blood spurts), yet the frequent verbal churchiness lends that excess a reactionary quease. Their ranks including a crossdressing gay guy (Garrett Wareing), while the despicables here feel like a paranoid QAnon fantasy of society’s “sick underbelly.”

Not so long ago, one might well have assumed this would get laughed off as overheated nonsense, but now it seems a bit reckless. The “alternative fact” ambiance is underlined by prominent “Based on a true story” billing — even though the final credits also include a hella-long disclaimer strongly denying all resemblance to actual events, people, locales, or anything else on real-world Earth.

Our protagonists are not given enough depth in the writing to create convincing characters, though the actors try. Too many subsidiary characters are shrilly one-note, and given no encouragement to rein it in, with Tucker particularly merciless in that regard. January Jones’ participation puzzles even more than that of Foxx: As Johansson’s conniving wife, she’s stuck with a shrewish role and dialogue that might’ve better suited the thespian range of Edy Williams, or perhaps Joan Collins in “Dynasty” mode.

Though his prior efforts behind the camera have been all over the map in terms of subject matter, from “The Notebook” to “Alpha Dog,” the strained feel to most of “Bullet’s” outré content suggests Cassavetes isn’t entirely at home walking on the wild side. Nonetheless, the film is well-crafted enough to hold attention, however much you may feel in need of a long shower afterward to wash off the muck. Kenji Katori’s widescreen cinematography is a significant plus. Amongst other solid design contributions, there are some good (if distracting) choices in music supervisor Dina Noir’s selections. Beyond their shared presence here, however, the only thing David Bowie, Jane’s Addiction, Bob Dylan, Funkadelic, Mozart, Dead Boys and Henry Purcell have in common is that they all deserve better than soundtracking a fiction this humorlessly crass.

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