Child of God (2014)

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Scott Haze convincingly plays the title role as Lester Ballard, a mentally deficient adult who lives off the land in rural Tennessee. He is the type of man who yells at passing cars. The film is set in the 1950s (?) in late autumn. The only home Lester has known was recently auctioned off. Through a series of circumstances Lester discovers necrophilia, which has never been one of my favorite film topics, except for maybe as a dark comedy which this wasn't.I will say the acting was excellent. The story was done well, bravo James Franco, but unfortunately didn't go anywhere. This is an excellent crime/ drama/ thriller, I didn't enjoy.Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, necrophilia, nudity (Nina Ljeti, Elena McGhee)

I think that 5.5 is a harsh score for such a good (maybe not a word that applies to this story, as it is sheer "horror" but...) adaption of the book (it should be noted that it is not an exact replication of the story in the book). 7 out of 10, not for the story but for the job done in making it.A lot of people love to hate on Mr. Franco it would seem, personally I don't get it but that's their business I reckon. What I can talk about is his direction of this movie and, in my opinion, he did a great job with the material. Like I said the story is sheer horror and selected (selected audience that is) viewing is HIGHLY recommended. Perhaps only people familiar with the book should watch this film, seriously it's not for the faint of heart.The acting is excellent all round, especially Mr. Haze's performance as Lester Ballard, scary stuff indeed. Locations are beautiful and the scene (props etc.) is set very well.All in all, a "good" film for people that like disturbing movies.

James Franco seems to be trying to make a reputation for himself as a director who will tackle "classic novels" that were considered to be unfilmable, as he did with AS I LAY DYING. Let's say this about the Cormac McCarthy source novel, though. You will hear a lot of praise heaped upon it by the literary intellectuals. What you hear, though, is that the author has an original way with his prose, or that it's well known for a distinctive writing style that is missing common punctuation. What you don't usually hear is "this is a stunningly original and exciting story". It's the style that is praised more than the story.That has an obvious effect on this movie, then, as you cannot translate the prose to the screen (though Franco tries by injecting voice- overs and on screen text containing actual excerpts). What you are left with is a story that isn't all that exciting and has been done plenty of times. Yes, the necrophilia angle takes it further than most movies are willing to go, but in the end, this is just another Ed Gein influenced horror tales. What it desperately needed was to have something more happen in the actual events of the story. There is very little actual action and very little occurs in this movie. Prepare yourself to spend a great deal of the run time following our main character as he wanders around in the woods talking to himself.It is the main character and the acting by Scott Haze that is the central reason anyone would want to watch this movie. It is mainly a character study of one man, who we meet in the beginning clearly already suffering from mental illness. Through the course of the events of the story, we watch his mental health further degrade until he is little more than a primal animal, living in a cave and acting out his sexual deviances on whatever victims stumble his way. Haze does an excellent job of portraying this character, who mostly mumbles his way through the movie, putting the emphasis on Haze to portray the characters mental instability through his facial expression. The character could have become a cardboard cutout villain, but through the acting of Haze and some directing by Franco, the character definitely has his sympathetic moments where we feel for the situations that have put him down this course in life.Ultimately, though, I was just bored through most of the movie. I don't mind artistic. I don't mind low budget. I don't mind experimental. I am not someone who just doesn't have a tolerance for this style of film making. Instead, the only real action is a botched lynching that he escapes from far too conveniently. I just kept waiting for something to happen and it never did, including a huge letdown ending.

'CHILD OF GOD': Four Stars (Out of Five)Director James Franco's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 1973 novel (of the same name) about a violent outcast trying to survive on his own, in a world that's shun him; set in the beautiful mountains of 1960s Sevier County, Tennessee. Franco also costars in the movie and co-wrote it, with Vince Jolivette. The film also stars Scott Haze (as it's central character, Lester Ballard), as well as Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Parrack, Brian Lally and Jolivette. I haven't read the book, and don't know how much justice Franco does to it, but this movie is definitely fascinating to watch.Haze plays Lester Ballard; a depraved man child who lost his parents at a very young age and was continuously rejected by society (all of his life). Forced to live on his own, in the mountains of 1960s Tennessee, Ballard becomes more and more mentally unstable, and increasingly violent, due to society's isolation of him. Nelson and Parrack play a sheriff and his deputy; who are following Ballard. Franco plays a man obsessed with taking the law into his own hands, against Ballard.While (as I've said) I can't comment on how this film lives up to the book that inspired it; I can say that it's almost equally as entertaining and interesting as other McCarthy film adaptations (like 'NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN', 'THE ROAD' and 'THE COUNSELOR'). All of these movies take a very disturbing and twisted look at human nature. I think Franco does as good a job, as the others, attempting to bring classic McCarthy literature to the big screen (although 'THE COUNSELOR' was actually an original screenplay, written by McCarthy). With this, and 'AS I LAY DYING' (from just last year), Franco continues to show what an amazingly talented and diverse filmmaker he can be. He does an incredible job of showing how society's alienation of someone can turn them to total madness. There is little light or hope here, which is it's main flaw, but it is a very interesting psychological character study and also a horrendously fascinating thriller. I can't wait to see what Franco does next!Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://youtu.be/NiZxP8LDXto