Opening with a sniper taking out civilians in New York, we are introduced to Peter, a detective with NYPD. When Peter goes up to talk to the sniper, things are going well, until he asks the sniper why he had done this. The sniper simply offers "God told me to" then jumps to his death.
Slowly more reports of mass killings begin to come in, and in all cases the killer claims "God told me to".
This is where the police procedural stuff comes in, as we follow Peter in his investigation. He eventually discovers that all of the killers had spoken to the same man not long before commuting the acts, and he starts trying to look into this man's history.
It's an incredibly 70's movie; not in the lava-lamps and acid way, but in the way of good cops, crooked cops, eccentrically dressed (black) pimps, and fights in pool halls. See also the fashion, hair, and that very particular editing technique that has dated 70s drama in a specific
So far so appealing, even tapping into some of my anti-theistic leanings... What I this man really is God or the second coming, but he's just having people mindlessly killed?
Sadly, about a third of the way in, Peter's investigation takes a turn for the (low-rent) X-Files, as he gets second an third hand tales about a woman (possibly the man's mother) who sounds suspiciously like she was abducted by aliens.
By the final act the movie has degenerated into nonsensical sci-fi wank. It's a crying shame, because until this point it was an interesting (if unusual) movie.
This is where the police procedural stuff comes in, as we follow Peter in his investigation. He eventually discovers that all of the killers had spoken to the same man not long before commuting the acts, and he starts trying to look into this man's history.
It's an incredibly 70's movie; not in the lava-lamps and acid way, but in the way of good cops, crooked cops, eccentrically dressed (black) pimps, and fights in pool halls. See also the fashion, hair, and that very particular editing technique that has dated 70s drama in a specific
So far so appealing, even tapping into some of my anti-theistic leanings... What I this man really is God or the second coming, but he's just having people mindlessly killed?
Sadly, about a third of the way in, Peter's investigation takes a turn for the (low-rent) X-Files, as he gets second an third hand tales about a woman (possibly the man's mother) who sounds suspiciously like she was abducted by aliens.
By the final act the movie has degenerated into nonsensical sci-fi wank. It's a crying shame, because until this point it was an interesting (if unusual) movie.
