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God Has A Rap Sheet!

2003, Movie, NR, 126 mins

God Has A Rap Sheet!: Review

GOD HAS A RAP SHEET!
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A micro-budget psychodrama set in a bare-bones New York City holding cell, that's by turns clever, gripping, obvious, amateurish, perceptive and tedious. There's a full moon over Manhattan, and over the course of a couple of busy hours seven men are arrested and tossed behind bars. Cabbie Mohamed (Mohammed Djellouli) is picked up for brawling with Big Rolla Bills (Bonz Malone) and Oscar (Andre De Leon). A&R guys John and Ian (Ken Li, Shane Franklin) are caught urinating in public. Hasidic salesman Josh (Peter Appel) is apprehended while beating on a prostitute, and bully boys Patrick and Anthony (Tommy Houlihan, Mark Love) are both collared for fighting, one at a bar and the other outside a club. The cell already has one occupant, a smelly, snaggle-toothed older man (playwright John Ford Noonan) who alternates between ranting incoherently and holding forth with considerable intelligence and lucidity, undermined only by his unwavering insistence that he's God. His children, as he addresses the disgruntled crew, represent a striking cross-section of humanity: Christian and Buddhist, Jew and Muslim; black, white and Asian, working class, white collar and poor; educated and street smart, tough and sheltered. None believes he's sitting in the presence of God, but "God" nonetheless manages to goad, cajole and challenge them to examine a variety of hot-button topics, including race, religion, sex and politics. Is "God" a harmless old crank, a college professor-gone-psycho, an avenging angel or a genuine avatar of the Almighty? And is that smooth-talking provocateur (William Smith) who haunts "God's" memories really Lucifer incarnate, or just a figment of a sad lunatic's dark imaginings? Written and directed by Kamal Ahmed, one of the briefly famous Jerky Boys (phone pranksters-turned-novelty recording artists), this rough-around-the-edges film is stagy and too long, but sometimes hits its marks with surprising accuracy. Ahmed gets uniformly strong performances from his diverse cast — which includes Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Noonan (A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking), tattoo artist Houlihan, legendary exploitation actor Smith and hip-hop journalist Bonz Malone — and makes a contrived situation hum with enough energy that filmmakers as different as Martin Scorsese and Abel Ferrara were captivated. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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