‘God’s Petting You’ Review – Messy Dark Comedy Feels Like An R-Rated Pure Flix Film

Directed By: Jamie Patterson

Starring: George Webster, Alice Lowe, Chris Willoughby, Skye Lourie

Plot Summary: God’s Petting You is a dark and twisted comedy that explores the depths and depravity of the Brighton underworld. Charlie, a down on his luck heroin addict, falls in love with a struggling sex addict, and together they hatch a hair-brained scheme to steal a small fortune from a criminally inclined porn star.

After the credits rolled on God’s Petting You, I thought to myself, “I did this to myself. I picked this movie to review.” Sure, I’m a sucker for a good wild movie, and the title and premise seemed to tick a lot of boxes. On the surface, the core setup is simple. In the right hands, it gives you a lot of room to craft a film that is thought provoking and meaningful, all without sacrificing the weirdness or the dark humor. Sadly, not only is this movie poorly made, but it has a lot of cringeworthy elements baked into it.

This movie has a lot of issues, but the biggest is the pacing. The movie is a raunchy take on a heist film, yet director Jamie Patterson clogs things with pointless side characters and subplots that go nowhere. Maybe most glaring is Charlie’s over-the-top boss that serves no purpose and is incredibly grating. Furthermore, Charlie (George Webster) is currently attending AA for his heroin addiction, though he only goes to score drugs (for reasons). His dealer leaves town, yet he still goes to the meetings. Now, you might think this is used as a device to get some deeper insight into Charlie.

Nope. In fact, this is seemingly only there because the director has an axe to grind with mental health professionals. This is where the cringe of this movie crops up. Charlie not only completely rips apart the poor woman leading the AA group, but a lot of scorn is projected at his therapist (which sort of makes sense in the narrative, but more on that later). Keep in mind, Charlie is meant to be a nice guy and we are firmly meant to be on his side.

When he insults his AA group leader and yells at a poor guy also attending the meeting, its jarring as hell. It feels like this is only inserted into the film to get an agenda a cross. There is a level of homophobia also present. We get two homophobic slurs hurled, and both of the film’s villains sexually assault a member of the same sex. Not to mention there seems to be a strong gender-normative theme running throughout.

The thing is, movies and in turn movie characters don’t have to be moral or be in any way role models. Yeah, I love American Psycho, but I wouldn’t want to be like Patrick Bateman. What kind of rubs me the wrong way about God’s Petting You is that these gross elements don’t feel organic to the characters, but only thrown in as the directors’ commentary. It’s this weird mixture of conservative talking points, yet it’s wrapped up in this hard-R coating that seems to be geared towards younger progressives.

On a bright spot, the acting is, for the most part, very good. George Webster does bring a certain charm to the role, despite the choices in the way his character is written. Skye Lourie, who is pretentiously only known as Tattoo Girl, is also very solid in her acting. Though, the chemistry between the two is just not there, which makes this paper-thin premise even more difficult to swallow. Alice Lowe is, as always, bloody brilliant, but she is utterly wasted in this.

God’s Petting You is plodding, tonally a mess and its message is frankly gross. This movie isn’t as edgy or interesting as it wants to think it is. It feels like an R-rated Pure Flix effort, which is a big pass for me.

God’s Petting You is currently available On Demand courtesy of Cranked Up Films. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukEfj7U-Rjg]