God

Warning: Contains Major Spoilers

Few movies have reminded me why I have a two-score system than this one, and as such I gave it one of the widest gulfs between two scores I ever have. Critically, I have to mark down Fredrick's long-delayed God for some dubious pacing and narrative blind-spots, but personally I was impressed by the depth it hints at in every corner. The movie was peppered with ideas that made me think, and wonder, even if at times the plot seemed almost determined not to follow up on them. This is an unusually meaty premise for a 3DMM movie, and there's a tendency to expect it to go farther than stories without as much originality. There's also the question of how directly Fredrick adapted the story from Mathieu Riley's script, making me uncertain who to address criticism and analysis to. Even with these in mind, God is a movie with extremely interesting ideas that ends up settling for them alone.

We open in the parking lot of a church, where a hostage situation is taking place. An officer and his subordinate discuss the situation and their options. The man inside has killed four policeman and seven churchgoers, and has one demand: he wants to talk to God. This is a powerful premise, borne out of a desperation so complete it has a childlike logic all its own. The man has thrown reason entirely out the window, unshakable in his conviction for this impossible demand, not really of the police but of God himself. He walks up and down the aisle, raving unstably to himself and shooting hostages with a frequency and pace that suggests each murder is just a continuation of his rant. The one sniper with a clear shot at him delivers an ultimatum to the police chief: if the man kills another person, he will take him down regardless of orders. The man kills another person and as the sniper fires, time stops, the bullet hovering inches from the man's head. God appears and offers the man...well, there's part of the problem.

Before I get into the most detailed exploration of a 3DMM movie's plot I or anyone has probably ever done, I'd like to talk about the cinematography real quick. Fredrick is one of the best scene-builders in the community, and for sheer pixel-precision, no one has his tenacity. The mise-en-scene in the parking lot is out of this world, with a level of depth and detail that gives a rare real-world feel to the proceedings. Inside the church we lose a little of the dimension, relegated to a 90-degree flipshot of the front door and the pulpit, and the use of the same actor to represent God and the man, often the same size and position in their respective shots, can come across as restrictive and confusing. There's a level at which it works, the movie doesn't get lost in meaningless "cool" angles or flip exclusively between two closeups, but we could have pulled back for a wide angle with a hostage frozen in time in the foreground or a shot from the rafters to give a bit more context. When everything comes to a close, the final shot is a masterpiece; I will speak about all the different films God could have been, but no matter what it became, this was the best possible way to end it.

What God the character is in this movie is uncertain for all the wrong reasons. He seems to change his motivation, rules, and assessment of the situation in every sentence. First he seems to be granting the man's request of an audience. Then he doesn't care what he wants. He doesn't want him dead, but he does want to erase him. He can't erase him without his permission. Yet next he tells the man that he doesn't have a choice. He brings up the request again -- now he does care what he wants. He offers to play a game for the man's soul, offering him a chance to look at the library of life to discover who killed his wife and allowing him revenge if he wins.

There are about ten separate ideas here, half of which contradict each other, none of which are really relevant to the plot as events unfold, and all of which could have been explored to much better effect with just one or two more rewrites. As it stands, God is completely inconsistent and the man reacts to him in a way that doesn't satisfactorily acknowledge that inconsistency. They are both products of the screenplay, neither inspiring the empathy or characterization we need. This is true of every character in the film.

The man is too unstable for us to root for him and doesn't follow through on his motives; he wants his wife back, yet God offers him a chance to learn what happened to her, and he doesn't argue the point. He takes the lead the script offers him, so that the game can occur, rather than staying true to his convictions, at which point he loses credibility as a character.

The police chief is far too concerned with keeping the man alive, and far too sympathetic with his situation. His job should be to save the lives of the hostages first. With eleven people killed already, the time for nonviolent solutions is long since past.

The second-in-command doesn't seem concerned enough with arguing this point. Like the man in the church, he takes the lead the screenplay offers him and gives us the "serve and protect" line, regardless of the logic of this situation.

The sniper is the only character who seems consistent. He's had enough of watching hostages die, but the problem with the police chief's motivation and the situation as it has unfolded adversely affects his characterization as well: he should be much more angry that it has progressed this far. In fact, it should have never progressed as far as it has.

And herein lies the most intriguing and the most frustrating thing about God. Nearly every facet of the film could be expanded upon with just a little bit more care. Mathieu has written, or Fred has produced, an unbroken string of premises. Take any one moment of this film and chances are it could be explored in a unique way. God is one hundred films trapped in a nine-minute construct that doesn't allow any of them to unfold satisfactorily.

The police chief could have a specific reason for sympathizing with the man that has clearly clouded his judgement. In turn, there would be more tension between him and his second-in-command and the sniper, because he's dragged the situation out. Or, the film could be clearer about the police not being able to get close enough to the building to take him down, explaining how eleven people could have died and they haven't killed him yet. Or the police could simply be more desperate than they are, seeing as how people are still being murdered from minute to minute and they aren't making any progress. The sniper could have only just gotten into position. The second-in-command could argue more forcefully that the time for nonviolent solutions has long since passed.

Inside the church, we face a conflict of different story themes that don't take hold. God could've been a lot clearer on his goals and what he was offering the man. The idea that the first two were supposed to die, but the others weren't is an intriguing idea, and seems to indicate a theme of fate and free will. This story could easily have been more about God needing to negotiate with the man because he went against the path God had set for his creation. To fit into this mold, the police would be more helpless, the man would seem to be more of an anomaly, and the game they play could have been given a brief backstory, with God implying that he's played it before at key moments in history, when things are supposed to happen, but don't. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a throwaway line, because it seems to have no bearing on what happens next.

Neither does the idea that the man is being offered a choice. God's reasoning for playing the game for the man's soul doesn't bear narrative fruit in principle or execution. He wants to erase the man from existence -- why? It could be to correct the theological "mistake" of him killing people he wasn't supposed to kill, but the film doesn't suggest this. He doesn't give a reason for offering the man a chance to find out more about his wife's death -- why not? It could have been incentive to get him to play the game, because he can't erase him without his permission -- and why not? There could be existential rules God must abide by, and moments in history where things go wrong for his plan require a compromise like this. The film doesn't follow up on this. There isn't a sufficient enough reason for the man to accept such meager compensation for winning, when he was willing to kill innocent people until God spoke to him directly, a long-shot by any possible standard -- why not? God could have made his terms non-negotiable and the man could have lost his temper, further characterizing him as a loose cannon, with God calmly waiting for him to be humbled by his inability to affect anything and accepting. Instead it's just a bizarre charater lapse.

Finally, the result of the game could have revealed something about all of this. Imagine if a) the game was established as a theological compromise on God's part for when the divine plan was defeated, b) the man was truly a loose cannon and driven by rage rather than the necessity of the script, c) the man had backstory hints that allowed us to empathize with or at least understand how he came to be like this, and d) the film had real thematic implications for what a man driven by grief to mass murder and the Creator himself playing a game for his soul might mean. Imagine the directions this could go in. In this version, the man wins the game and says, "Then you'll give me what I want." What does he really want? It's a sign of his inconsistent characterization that I don't really know, and the movie doesn't explore what his desire means, or what he was willing to do to get it would cost him. God doesn't seem to make it into an issue either. "A deal is a deal", he says, and shows the man the door to the library of life. God walks toward it. The man doesn't move. God turns. "I was forgetting something very important," he says. "What?" the man asks. "Time." God says, and the bullet finishes its trajectory.

This is the narrative path God has picked -- God cannot erase the man, so he offers him what he promised, and then restarts time and allows him to die. Is it because the man didn't move that he died? What does this say about him? What does it say about God? How has time really been a theme to the film up to this point? Had it been incorporated into more aspects of the storyline, this might have been an insanely cool moment. Time could have been made into more of a factor in the actions of the police, who had eleven deaths on their hands and didn't seem to be rushing things. The man could have made some observation about how short a time his wife had on this earth. The fact that nine of the eleven were not supposed to die could say something about the effect of time on God's divine plan. Time could have been an element of the personality and backstory of the man, or the police chief, or one of the hostages.

What God fails to do is find a cohesive narrative thread for its ideas. At first glance I thought it had too many, or too few, but it isn't necessarily a matter of quantity in a premise like this, but of economy. It has too many ideas that aren't explored, and too few of them play into any kind of central theme. It's a long string of jump-off points for other stories that are left unused, unrealized. Interesting in that it inspires thought and makes you wonder where it could have gone, with a degree and frequency that some of the more fully-realized films don't even manage, but ultimately frustrating. I wanted to see what this meant, what this would mean, how that would resolve itself, how this is important, why he thinks this, why that happened, whether this would happen. This film could've been four minutes long or forty, and every number in between, in so many different ways. Here is one that's nine minutes, but not the best one.

Critical Score: 61/100.
Personal Score: 88/100.

[Fredrick]

Just... wow. That is indeed the most comprehensive review I have ever recieved on any of my movies, well done and thank you very much! I'd reply to each of your points, but I think it's best that I don't, as I haven't got much to say, really. You bring up a lot of good points (besides, I'm not the best guy to respond to the story issues, as I did follow the script pretty straight-forward, only adding a couple of lines or three where I felt there was something missing), and I can only take the criticism to my heart and do my best not to make the same mistakes again. Basically just force myself to ask myself "why am I showing this" and "why am I doing this" more often during the process of making a movie (good thing you intervened in the production of A Vampire Love Story). I also wish I had varied the interior church scene angles more, but oh well.

The fact that you think it was one of the most interesting projects you've seen made me happy to hear, though most of the credit obviously goes to Riley. Thanks again for writing the review!

[Aaron Haynes]

Originally Posted by Fredrick

Basically just force myself to ask myself "why am I showing this" and "why am I doing this" more often during the process of making a movie (good thing you intervened in the production of A Vampire Love Story).

This was the main point I wanted to get across (and I noticed it in AVLS as well, as I mentioned in my testview). The trick is to come up with good moments that become good scenes, arrange them in an order that makes logical sense and is well-paced, and then forge connections where possible. A line of dialogue might indicate something about what happens later, even ironically. A character might glance at another character as they speak, without the second character noticing. Interest us, make us care, and over the course of the movie, reveal what each of these things mean. That's kind of vague advice, but storytelling is a lot about making these connections and (in film) using visual space to reinforce what your script is saying.

Glad you got something out of it.

[Andres]

I'm a little confused about this review. You basically say the movie's plot is grotesquely ruined in handling, but give it almost a 90% enjoyability rating?

[Aaron Haynes]

Yeah, I use that score to show appreciation for what the movie tried to do, even if it didn't come off objectively. 61% is the bottom-line, official score of what it achieved, but I really liked the number of ideas and possibilities the movie seemed to hint at. The Personal Score is a combination of how much I enjoyed it and how I feel about it as a project.