Nothing has been simultaneously more beneficial and harmful to the growth of humanity than money – our voyage from bartering systems in the early days of civilization to the present day has been fascinating, and we have seen many revolutions emerge, both literal and figurative, over the way money is used within society, and it usually doesn’t take long to find correlations between the desire for riches and religious worship, since they both pander to the same carnal cravings and force people to act in ways that are sometimes beyond embarrassing. Marty Feldman was a great social satirist, going back to his early days as a young comedian, so it only makes sense that someone known for lampooning every aspect of the human condition would eventually find his way to tackle this precise subject. This takes the form of In God We Tru$t, a film in which Feldman plays a blissfully ignorant monk who is forced to leave the monastery and go in search of funding to keep their institution open, braving the wilderness that is Los Angeles in the late 1970s, an era where sordid values apparently ran rampant throughout the city. What starts as a bitingly funny and pointed satire about the collision of religion and money eventually loses momentum and begins something of a chore, despite the talent involved in its production, on both sides of the camera. Not a film that is particularly synonymous with Feldman, and which we only find evoking some degree of curiosity based on the fact that it was his second directorial effort (and between this and his previous film, The Last Remake of Beau Geste, it was clear that he was fashioning himself to be a filmmaker alongside his existing work as a writer and actor), and instead one that is more embraced by a very small group of devoted fans who find value in this unconventional comedy, In God We Tru$t is a purely middle-of-the-road romp, a film we’ve seen many times before as far as themes and content goes, and which ultimately offers 90 minutes of solid entertainment, and very little else.

Religion is such an easy concept to satirize, it borders on being almost predictable that someone would choose it as a subject of a comedy. After all, belief has been a factor in society for thousands of years in some form or another, and considering the variety of scandals and the growing sense of incredulity towards faith as we find politics and culture drifting away from it as the epicentre of humanity. In this regard, In God We Tru$t is extremely predictable and not particularly daring at a cursory glance. There are however a few merits – Feldman had deep roots within the comedy industry, and by the time he wrote and directed this film, he had several decades of work under his belt, meaning that this wasn’t some attempt at sharp satire curated by some young upstart, but rather one that came about as the result of a lengthy career of observing the human condition and unearthing the peculiar details situated right at their core. This is primarily the reason the film is able to capture our attention and keep us engaged and intrigued, at least at first. Filtering the subject through the lens of a satire also based around capitalism is not any more unique, but it does allow it to have some point of view, which is sometimes a quality that is difficult to find in these broad parodies, especially those based around something as nebulous as faith and its following. Feldman does show a lot of strength, and we find that In God We Tru$t is composed of a variety of excellent moments, it simply fails to deliver when it comes to placing them together in a manner that isn’t intensely overwrought or one-dimensional, which is the main problem behind the film. There isn’t a lot to be said about this film as far as its perspective goes – its themes are obvious, but this doesn’t stop a few of the setpieces being quite effective. The first encounter with the travelling preacher, the scenes set in the megachurch that forms the centrepiece of the film, and a range of others (such as a memorable confession scene) show that this film contains great components, they just never quite work together to creative a cohesive whole, which is something that Feldman seemed to consistently struggle with throughout both of his two directorial endeavours.

Fortunately, we are fully-aware of every area in which In God We Tru$t goes wrong, which alleviates a lot of the pressure in trying to figure out where the shortcomings are, particularly those relating to the overall experience, which becomes somewhat frustrating after a while. Feldman was not someone who possessed a strong directorial vision – he was a fantastic writer and certainly a unique comedic voice, but as far as a clear style and understanding of the mechanics of putting a film together, he was quite lacking. This film plays like a series of vignettes, which is aligned with his origins in sketch comedy, but considering it was designed as a single story, this creates quite a scattered and unengaging narrative structure, particularly since these ideas never come together. The result is a film that runs out of steam extremely fast – a promising first act suggests that the rest of the film would be on the same level, but once the eccentric characters have been introduced and the plot has to make some progress, it falls apart at the seams. The main ideas are strong, but it loses sight of them midway through, becoming somewhat overwrought and disconcerting in how it supposedly presents some daring, revolutionary vision of the intersections between religion and capitalism, but in reality it is just the same hackneyed set of jokes repeated in an increasingly unfunny manner. The film also feels far too long – it’s a solid 97-minutes in length, but yet it seems twice as long, particularly because of the elongation of gags that should have been shorter, and the fact that the plot doesn’t go anywhere valuable. Feldman would have been better off making a film with similar themes, just presenting them as segments in an anthology, since the individual parts are strong on their own, but simply don’t work together in any logical or meaningful way. The subject that it is lampooning is also delivered in a way that makes it far too obvious – if a satire needs to hammer in its underlying themes consistently to the point where it feels like the director is simply holding up a sign with all of the concepts broken down, then it has failed to give the audience the benefit of the doubt, or the opportunity to unearth these details for ourselves, which is never a good approach for any kind of comedy in which the element of surprise is the most valuable commodity of all.

At the very least, even as a deeply flawed film with many problems, In God We Tru$t still features Feldman in the leading role, which means that it will appeal to anyone who is as captivated and enthralled by his screen presence as everyone ought to be. He was such a captivating performer, and his ability to play these eccentric and unconventional characters with such immense charisma is the reason he is permanently etched into film history as one of its funniest and most daring performers. There is nothing in this film that we haven’t seen from him before, but this is exactly why his performance is so captivating – the persona he cultivated on screen was extremely funny, with this wacky, off-the-wall oddball proving to be easily adaptable to any scenario. He’s suitably terrific, and perhaps the film would have been better had it given him more time to develop this character, rather than passing the buck to the rest of the cast, who are certainly good but also equally under-developed. Peter Boyle is perhaps the only other person in the film who emerges unscathed, as his performance as the philandering travelling preacher is a highlight of the film – but the reason for this is because he only appears in short bursts, so the novelty of his performance or presence on screen never wears off. Andy Kaufman is also great as the film’s main villain, the brilliantly-named Armageddon T. Thunderbird, but he proves to be too unwieldy of a performer to be as effective an antagonist as he ought to have been, which does remove a lot of the film’s central tension. Louise Lasser does her best, but her character is too one-dimensional and she is never given much depth or nuance. In God We Tru$t doesn’t promote itself as a character-piece, so we can’t really use the performances as evidence towards its failure, but it does seem quite limited in various places when it comes to characterization, and improving it slightly may have made a considerable difference in the final product.

While it doesn’t bring much joy and it’s not said with any sense of satisfaction, but In God We Tru$t is a film that is as tacky and unseemly as its title. Despite a promising premise and an abundance of comedic talent involved, the film simply falls flat after a very short time, and never manages to recover. It is far from a complete travesty, and it has a few merits scattered throughout, but for the most part it doesn’t function as anything other than a mildly-amusing comedy that aims for the jugular, but ultimately becomes far too tame to leave much of an impression. It’s not the sharpest satire, and its observations are very surface-level and seem to be aiming for the low-hanging fruit, which is logical but still quite underwhelming. It’s not a film that offers any real insights into its subject matter, and instead just tries to elicit a few cheap laughs, which come at the expense of a potentially much more engaging and compelling film. In God We Tru$t doesn’t do much with its premise, and it eventually starts to just fall apart when it realizes that it cannot hold the weight of its ambition, especially not with such a limited, one-dimensional approach to a narrative that needed a more consistent approach to make an impact. As a whole, the film will appeal to those who are enamoured with Feldman’s style of humour, but not enough to enthuse those who are seeking something deeper and more complex. Not nearly as engaging as it could have been, and sometimes outright frustrating, there was a much better film contained somewhere in In God We Tru$t, it just seems incapable of actually finding it.