God's Lonely Man

A film review by Christopher Null - Copyright © 2002 Filmcritic.com

I usually place no stock on Internet Movie Database user comments, but when I spied "worst movie ever" on God's Lonely Man listing, my eyebrow arched a bit.

A clear inspiration for 2000's States of Control, 1996's God's Lonely Man features a man (instead of States' woman) lost in life. He does all the drugs he can when he isn't working at an adult video store. When he gets fired, he goes mental, shoots his dealer, attempts suicide, and after failing cuts off his pinky! He then gets involved with a 15-year-old call girl before "rescuing" her from her sexually abusive stepdad and busting up a snuff film ring.

Or is it about any of this at all?

With shades of good movies (Clean, Shaven) and awful ones (8MM), God's Lonely Man is not the worst movie ever, but it's close to the worst-titled. I actually got into our anti-hero's struggle a couple of times (his cute sidekick doesn't hurt), and though the ending's kind of lame, I don't know how else writer/director Frank von Zerneck Jr. was going to end this thing. Kind of a train wreck. Beautiful, but still a train wreck, ya know?

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Rating

3.0 out of 5 Stars

Cast and Crew

  • Director: Frank von Zerneck Jr.
  • Producer: Randy Sutter, Danielle von Zerneck
  • Screenwriter: Frank von Zerneck Jr.
  • Stars: Michael Wyle, Heather McComb, Justine Bateman, Paul Dooley
  • MPAA Rating: NR