There is something intriguing when looking at someone’s career especially when they’re writing and/or directing. Looking at Nick Cassavetes’s work, writing Blow, Alpha Dog and then moving to My Sister’s Keeper and now onto God is a Bullet (an adaptation) while directing things like The Notebook, Alpha Dog, My Sister’s Keeper, and The Other Woman. God is a Bullet there are such drastic tonally different movies across the board, however, everything at least is well done and competent with some heartwarming centres – except for the latest. God is a Bullet is a clunky mess that doesn’t have emotion or character development that makes anyone watching quite frankly care about anything that is going on, and every single actor in the film is better than what they’re giving, and it affects the movie entirely.
There is a gang of absolute menaces that kidnap women, torture women, and flat-out murder people. The cops in the city are rather helpless in getting to the bottom of this until Detective Bob Hightower (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has it happen to him when the gang kidnaps his daughter and murders his ex-wife and her husband. As this is happening, and he is not on the case at all (as his captain reminds him) Case Hardin (Maika Monroe) enters the scene, and despite her wrap sheet Hightower looks the other way and decides to enlist her help to get to the bottom of this chaos reaping through the city and to save his daughter. Case is convinced that she is aware of who is behind the kidnapping and the gang issues, and due to how desperate Bob is he agrees to go along with her suggestions.
Since he has to blend in to try and get his daughter back, he meets The Ferryman (Jamie Foxx) to get some tattoos and follow the advice of Case. Without divulging more of the story and crossing into spoilers, Bob eventually meets the people behind the crimes and the movie kicks off into second gear but is clearly driven by someone who cannot drive a stick.
While God is a Bullet may be a compelling book, and certainly, one that may engage its audience, the movie adaptation is one that leaves a lot to be desired. There is something clearly here, and Cassavetes has a proven track record that shows he can competently direct and write a movie so it’s interesting where this fell apart. The material does seem very dense and complicated, but the translation to screen truly leaves a lot to be desired.
As well, unfortunately, the cast here is underutilized and doesn’t captivate the audience enough to engage in an interesting two-and-a-half-hour movie. Nikolaj Coster-Waldu as a washed-up cop who wants to find his daughter and stop these criminals feels like a phoned-in performance. In contrast, Maika Monroe feels one-dimensional and Jamie Foxx isn’t given enough to even do anything that evokes an audience response. Everyone feels wasted in this film that is all over the place and never captivates the audience enough to evoke an emotion or a response. It truly is unfortunate as the rest of Cassavetes’s resume is rather impressive.
