A dispossessed, violent man';s life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, Ballard descends to the level of a cave dweller as he falls deeper into crime and degradation.
19 April 1978, Palo Alto, California, USA
March 13, 1945 in Hamilton, Ohio, USA
8 February 1981, Allen, Texas, USA
11 December 1971, Hamilton, Ohio, USA
6 November 1972, Morristown, Tennessee, USA
1948, Decatur, Illinois, USA
4 December 1971, Hamilton, Ohio, USA
29 July 1985, Low Moor, Virginia, USA
June 23, 2016
Child of God toes the line between success and failure - but, ultimately, leans into success, and occasionally threatens to leap into it entirely.
August 01, 2014
"Child of God" fascinates like a song sung just out of tune but rhythmically sturdy enough to keep you listening in the hopes it'll right itself.
August 01, 2014
Surprisingly pretty good.
August 03, 2014
Beautifully shot, well acted, and the score is lovely, but the film has nothing to say about the human degradation in which it wallows. If you're gonna make me smell dung for two hours, at least fertilize my lawn.
August 01, 2014
A good faith but blank retelling of McCarthy's first major statement.
September 15, 2014
With Child of God, Franco has come up with something distinctive that both captures the atmosphere of McCarthy's neo-Gothic universe and suggests a consolidation on the director's As I Lay Dying.
August 10, 2014
James Franco should be hailed for taking a crack at such dense and unforgiving material, but the relentless grimness leaves you numb rather than enlightened.
October 31, 2014
... certainly not for all tastes, but as a raw and visceral portrait of sexual and social defiance, it conveys a powerful glimpse into backwoods desperation and survival instincts.
June 13, 2016
Ultimately the movie's message is that community is sacred, all God's children should be cared for, and the destitute need a human net to save them from descent into madness.
August 07, 2014
For obvious reasons too, it's a tough undertaking to endear sociopaths, serial killers and their ilk as something more, something human.
August 01, 2014
There's no denying Franco's ambition, and in "Child of God" you can see evidence (almost for the first time) that he's reaching for something he may one day attain.
July 31, 2014
This wrong-headed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's taut 1973 novel, as interpreted by director James Franco, spends too much time trying to create an element of compassion for this devilishly aberrant killer.
