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"God's Country features a remarkable lead performance from Thandiwe Newton, but the unfocused, predictable screenplay makes this film too dull to remember. Technically, it's one of the strongest movies of the festival. Gorgeous cinematography, sweet score, gripping atmosphere -- it holds the essential technical ingredients for a great film.

However, by attempting to tackle many different subject matters, Julian Higgins isn't able to properly concentrate and exceptionally develop a single one. In addition to this, the protagonist carries relatable motivations, but her consequent actions feel contradictory. The racism and sexism that she has to deal with are real, but her way of confronting these situations is far from exemplary.

Finally, the impactful ending beautifully works in theory, but since everything plot-wise is so unsurprising and slow-paced, the viewers will probably feel too tired to care by the end."

Rating: C.

I saw "God's Country" at the Traverse City Film Festival on its closing day. I initially was going to skip it due to its poor reviews on this site and others, but a number of different people told me "It's great" so my wife and I decided to see it. I should have listened to my first instinct.

Thandiwe Newton is in almost every scene. I have always liked her acting even if she has never been in a really good film, and the same holds true here. She is introduced as Sandra, a lone and lonely, petite women living in remote Montana. We learn she and her mother moved here from New Orleans. She is grieving the very recent death of her mother and is also angry at the patriarchy and racism that she sees in her work as a professor at a small nearby university. She lives in a modern, lovely house in the middle of the beautiful Montana wilderness.

Sandra soon begins to be bullied by two young adult brothers - Nathan, belligerent but sometimes thoughtful and Samuel, clearly violent and evil. They trespass on her property to go up in the hills hunting. Sandra tells them to stop and soon an arrow lodges into her front door. She calls local law enforcement saying she does "not feel safe." It turns out he is the only officer in "300 sq miles", and one who is not very effective. He warns Nathan and Samuel to be respectful and abide by the law but tells Sandra that there is little he can do.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

So Sandra takes the law into her own hands, quickly escalating the conflict beyond any reason. And (big coincidence #1) it turns out that Nathan & Samuel are friends of her department head Arthur, who is also her closest neighbor (she can see his house using binoculars - big coincidence #2) And, by the way, Arthur sexually molested a young student of color (Gretchen) with whom Sandra is friendly at the university (big coincidence #3) Even though Sandra implied to Gretchen (when she revealed her molestation to Sandra) that their conversation would stay between them, she quickly spills the beans to Arthur in a threatening manner.

Meanwhile either Nathan or Samuel kill Sandra's dog (off-screen) and also a young deer (perhaps on her or on Arthur's property - it is not clear). The non-sensical violence escalates from that point forward. In the end Sandra murders both Nathan (who was the more reasonable of the two) and his brother Samuel. She clearly did it with "malice aforethought" even though they never physically harmed her. Then she calmly sits on the front porch drinking a beer while waiting to be arrested and imprisoned for the rest of her life - or even executed (which is still legal in Montana).

All of this takes place in about a week's time. We also find out (big coincidence #4) that Sandra was a policewoman in New Orleans (without a hint as to how she became a professor of public speaking.) And we find out (by occasional odd scenes of water dripping while hearing thunder) that Sandra quit the force due to her observation of police and government racism during hurricane Katrina (big coincidence #5). I mention all these disparate facts to show what an improbable construct underlies the whole film.

So yes, it was tense and thrilling in the beginning, but soon made one want to laugh at why any intelligent person would make the choices Sandra made. And to illustrate how morally corrupt this plot is when it attempts to make us sympathize with and justify the cold-blooded murder of two people (only one of which was likely the instigator) for killing a dog, a fawn and property damage.

It appears the screenwriters wanted to address many issues - racism, misogyny, bullying and the elite/redneck divide. And I have heard that the directors asked (at a Q&A that I could not attend) "What would Clint Eastwood do and why are we judging Sandra differently?". Well, to my memory Clint (not my favorite person but...) did not murder anyone without warning for being bullies. The people he purposefully killed were killers themselves. That is western justice. This film does not achieve that level of morality.

I get it. You should stand for something rather than fall for anything. Still, this lady was really pushing the envelope by escalating everything. I mean she was really asking for it. She broke more laws than the aggressors. Ironically, her past job should have gave her insight and made her smarter about it. Honestly, I don't know what the moral of this story is. I feel she should have put up a fence or moved. Why would any single woman live in the most remote area knowing there are few law enforcement to provide protection.? She had to have known how risky this would be. I'm a guy and even I wouldn't feel comfortable living in the middle of nowhere alone. To top it off, she threw her only friend under the bus. This is like watching any vigilante movie where the bad guys were not as aggressive as the vigilante. I dunno....