No God, No Master (2014)
A plot to overthrow the United States government is uncovered in New York City in the summer of 1919 when William Flynn, a field agent for the Bureau of Investigation, is sent to investigate a bomb threat that has targeted some of America's most powerful politicians and leaders of commerce, New York millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Sr. among them. Flynn's investigation takes him on a journey into the underworld of homegrown terrorism and introduces him to a competitive culture of violence and murder. Greed, power, and politics are at the center of the story and Flynn must distinguish the villains from the merely discontented. Along the way, he discovers that terrorism has many faces and that a determination of guilt or innocence often lies in the psychology of fear that constricts individuals at every level of society. Sedona International Film Festival.
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Good movie but grossly overrated
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Valiant attempt to a portrait of class struggle, government corruption and alliance with industrialists, radicalization of workers against inhumane labor conditions. interesting weaving of the scapegoating of sacco and vanzetti. dangerous portrayal of luigi galleani, who the director accuses of collaborationism with the palmer administration. why assign the role of traitor to a historical character who was certainly an extremist, but not a collaborationist? there's no doubt infiltrators were active and successful, but galleani is too famous to be so grossly misrepresented. also, the music-->unbearable
No God, No Master (2013) is thoroughly ridiculous in its attempts to unify some type of coherent story by putting together a conglomeration of notorious events and characters (Industrial Workers of the World, John D. Rockefeller, Sacco and Vanzetti, The Palmer Raids (1919 and 1920), Emma Goldman, and J. Edgar Hoover, into a debilitated storyline.The acting is horrendously weak, the script, loose and dead, and I even noticed many mistakes (camera light in automobile windshield reflection, reflection of a modern skyscraper apartment in a shop window, the "yellow lines" of a modern road that were heaped with dirt but still visible).At its most simplistic, No God, No Master is merely a torrid attempt at anarchist propaganda. Most of the scenes are contrived and stilted, and the budget hampers the effective power.It is average. Reds (1981), The Molly Maguires (1970), Germinal (1993) and Matewan (1987) (which also had David Strathairn) are far superior films.
So Many Historical Headlines to Cover, so Little Time, and so Little Money to make the Movie. The Story of Palmer's Raids, the Attorney General's Attempt in 1919 to Mass Deport Thousands of Immigrants before such a Thing was made Illegal, is a Story that is just too Enormous to Tell in Ninety Minutes.Add to that the Backstory of Fat Cat Indifference and down right Worker Oppression is Given some Screen Time but again is Light on Detail and Heavy of Speechifying. But if this Little Movie can do Anything it can Draw Attention to a somewhat Forgotten Time and Place in America's Early Twentieth Century History and might Propel Folks to do some Research.The Subject matter and the Situation has Not Lost any of its Relevance and can be Seen as a Mirror to Things that matter just as Much Today. It is an Engrossing Story and is Played Well enough to Entertain as well as Enlighten. This was a Time when Workers were Definitely Exploited and Sought Collective Bargaining. It Must Also be Said that the Workers were Being Exploited from All Sides and there was Blood on Everybody's Hands.Worth a Watch for its Historical Relevance and as a Primer for more Investigation into the Struggles of the Time and a Sordid Situation that can Never be Forgotten, Lest We Repeat. Oh, Wait, We Have. So that makes this Movie even more Important.
The start of the movie is crisp and taut, and lays out a tragic crime and some capable characters to solve it. Unfortunately the film quickly loses its way, snarking into class warfare, and derailing completely into the fever swamps of apologetics for Anarchism. The latter comes complete with drippy lines from Bakunin (although nothing of his hatred of "blood sucking" Jews).After all too much of this, the plot tension over the dramatic opening crime is squandered, replaced by obvious preachy vignettes designed to push the concept that the 'real' villains here are the thuggish cops and the rich. They have to put in yet another crime to recapture any sense of purpose after the class warfare lecture. Unfortunately, this little pick up is immediately metamorphosed into another political lecture, complete with printed jabs at J Edgar Hoover.In summary: Unsatisfying and trite.