'God's Not Dead' Goes to Washington
More misadventures in bad cinema with two films in the God's Not Dead series.
I’ve written previously about the first three God’s Not Dead films. Back then, I suggested “the trilogy is less about proving that ‘god's not dead’ so much as arguing that people are trying to kill him”. At this point what started as a bad Christian movie with delusions of a philosophy has morphed into a bloated franchise that touches on virtually every talking point in the right-wing Christian grievance complex.
The latest installments — We The People and In God We Trust — each take series stalwart Reverend David Hill to Washington D.C., first as a witness in favor of Christian homeschoolers and then as a congressional candidate. To my disappointment, I could only find the most recent film in theaters; to entertain myself, I chose seat H11 for myself, not because it was central but because it almost spells out He11, which is where I’m definitely going if it turns out the god of these movies isn’t dead.
For such didactic, dialogue-leaning films, the GND franchise is reliably packed with terrible actors. The performances range from “workplace training video” to “Fox News opinion segment” to “student acting showcase”. The rogue’s gallery of right-wing celebs and personalities make the films at least a mildly fun game of spot the D-lister.
The one bright spot is Ray Wise, who reprises his role from a previous film to play the wicked political opponent of Reverend Hill in In God We Trust. Wise’s character is once again exaggeratedly evil, which, given Wise’s resting demon face, is a bit of a cheat. But compared to everyone else, Wise is at least a joy to watch.
Structured as a courtroom drama and an election drama respectively, the fourth and fifth installment of the franchise are overwrought and boring in equal measure. I recall an anecdote from film school about Orson Welles watching Stagecoach over and over again as he prepared to make Citizen Kane. I wouldn’t be surprised if the people behind these films watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington over and over again but kept dozing off every time.
Much like the previous installments in the series, the films are nightmarish hallucinations of a world in which Christianity is constantly under siege and everything is a trial from god. Call it the hammer/nail principle. When your entire philosophy is built on martyrdom, everything is going to seem like persecution.
These films are absolutely loaded up on bad logic in defense of Christianity, which is the bread and butter of the series, but they’re also peppered throughout with ridiculous culture war talking points. More so than the previous three installments I found myself noticing the resemblance to modern right-wing politics. For example, crying that “biology is redefined” is a winking nod to transphobes everywhere that’s subtle enough to avoid alienating anyone foolish enough to imagine these are just feel-good, non-partisan spiritual dramas. The films never really were that, but increasingly they are unsettling political treatises wrapped in gauzy religiosity and sappy speeches.
In summation, I’d rather be swallowed whole by the Earth itself than continue to descend into this cavernous, bottomless pit of a movie franchise. The end.