I give anyone props on taking on a Cormac McCarthy novel and trying to make a film out of it. There have been a few successes "No Country for Old Men", "All the Pretty Horses" and maybe "The Road" -- I found that film below average, myself. But hey, who am I but no one. Did Franco fair well with this one? I don't know yet, I'm only 21 minutes in. What caught my eye; as the title to this review states: Lester Ballard (Scott Haze) has the whitest teeth for a character who appears not to have bathed himself or changed his clothes in over a year. Not saying it isn't possible just seems highly unlikely the dude brushes his teeth once or twice a day, flosses etc., Perhaps it's just me, or not, haven't read but one other review and they didn't mention Ballard's clean shiney teeth. The last Franco film I saw was "The Institute" (2017). I hated it. Gave it a 1/10. It ripped off "The Wicker Man" from 1973 and pretty much used every female character as nothing but naked girls to whistle at. Idiotic. I did like "The Sound and The Fury" (2014), another difficult novel to make a film out of. What I know about the over 11,000 films and 10,000 TV shows (by episode) I have rated here is there has to be at least one character one attaches themselves to. Whether you have an emotional attachment or not is irrelevant; just need the attachment because it carries you along the story. Makes you pay attention to the little things; makes you wonder if you can relate in some way. Since Ballard is the one you mainly see in this, that's who we get to attach to.Ballard is an interesting character. I enjoyed the scene where he won the stuffed animals and then enjoyed the fireworks. There you see a sort of gentle side of Ballard. But we know he isn't right in the head and is prone to extreme violence. Mentally he's like a child but not stupid. When he finds the car with the two deceased young boy and girl who died from (more likely) exhaust fumes, at first (like a young pubescent boy) he fondles the girl, leaves, goes back and has sex with her dead body then leaves but leaving the vehicle like it was when he found it, but then he goes back and takes the girl to his shack. Child-like and definitely mentally disturbed.In the first hour of the film I always got the feeling that he wanted to be 'normal' like everyone else. Like when he buys a dress and makeup for the dead girl he's perpetually in a 'relationship' with. Don't know where he gets his money from, did wonder about that. Maybe his father left him some money before he died. Who knows. The film is actually quite slow in its telling. Not boring, just slow. When the shack caught on fire I did wonder if he would go back in and 'save' the dead girl. To his detriment: he did try to save her. It was sort of sad to see him there with just his stuffed tiger and bear watching the shack, his already dead girlfriend, and the other stuffed bear burn. I actually pitied him for a moment. When he shot his stuffed animals repeatedly while weeping and yelling at them, in that moment I felt he was schizophrenic. Then he became a murderer or more succinct: a serial killer. I think he became a murderer because only the dead or inanimate could love him, in his mind. It's hard to understand such people, I guess.

Unengaging and dull.A man lives on the fringes of society in a remote rural area. Over time his anti-social behaviour becomes more and more extreme, deranged and felonious.Despite the grittiness of the plot and some potentially controversial scenes, the movie feels quite empty. It's just a 100- minute walk-though of a few days in the life of an insane, feral person. There is no engagement with the lead character. We don't get his backstory, or any reason to empathise with him. So it just feels like a join-the-dots, blow-by-blow exercise with no point at all.While the script is based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, the movie is directed by James Franco, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Now you see where the problem lies... Turns out the only thing worse than James Franco's acting is his directing. On the plus side, while Franco does act in the movie, his role is quite small and has little screen time.

well done, Mr. Franco. after watched this film, i have to say that you are indeed got something we called 'talent'. this film has put you in a totally different category and level. the original story created by the author of 'no country for old man' was such a weird one but in other word, a very very disturbing and sad one. we got a crazy, stone-cold bloody killer in 'no country for old man', now we got a half crazy, half idiotic lone-wolf-like loco hilly-billy roaming aimlessly day and night. we saw him gradually deteriorated, became crazier, became a more and more violent sociopath. he at first was not a rapist but was imprisoned as a rapist, that jail time had changed him into another unsalvageable rapist and a serial killer, an incurable social disease. Scott haze had successfully performed an Oscar level character, very convincing, very intense, very pitiful dejected person who step by step turned into a half human, half animal like tragic role. what made this novel and the adapted film unique is although the 'lester' guy did a lot of unthinkable crimes, we, the viewers, seemed not be able to hate him as we usually hate a vicious killer, murderer or a rapist. this character has gently affected us to sympathize him as a victimized victim. after watched this film, i have found that i could not judge or blame him as a bad person by all means, even he had caused lot of troubles and deaths, i seemed to still consider him as another kind of victim.this is a great viewing experience.

As a big fan of McCarthy's "The Road," (both the book AND the film), I was excited to see the trailer for "Child OF God," a film based on another of his works, which, admittedly, I had not read. I put the film on and proceeded to be disappointed. A severely disturbed hillbilly with a traumatic past is ejected from his home, after which he wanders around Tennessee, clutching his beloved rifle (and assorted stuffed toys). Mumbling incoherently, talking incoherently and shrieking incoherently, he goes from squatting in isolated cabins and raping corpses, to living in caves and killing a young woman so as to continue raping corpses. Finally, he is caught during a botched murder attempt, but is able to escape when a lynch mob sneaks him out of custody in an attempt to take the law into their own hands. Scott Haze's portrayal of the deranged Lester Ballard is truly excellent. However, the bleak and depressing tone of the film was overshadowed by a pervasive sense of boredom, leaving me practically without feeling. By the 80-minute mark, I was just waiting for the movie to end. Which it did: at 96 minutes it just sort of peters out and comes to a dead end.