The film is now included with an Amazon Prime video subscription (in the UK at least). Warning: spoilers below.
I thought the film was fine, I enjoyed it a lot, though maybe it is a bit toothless. The humour is mostly very mild, but still diverting enough. I thought making Moses humourous made him very endearing. You could tell he was a perfectly harmless oddball despite preaching insurrection, and I found him and his family very sympathetic characters. I'd have appreciated his three main followers being more fleshed out though.
A lot of people seem to have felt the pacing was bad and the film was disjointed, or the plot was repetitive. I didn't find that at all, I thought the pacing was fine and the plot was actually very clever in the way it engineered a situation where Moses had a SWAT team training their guns on him while having done nothing he could actually be arrested for. That scene was a great encapsulation of the film's message that innocent people are being victimised. I also found the FBI scenes well-written and acted, I don't really get why people are saying they're awkward or bad. And of course Davis was great as Moses.
I admit that the film does seem to be lacking firepower though, and doesn't seem quite trenchant or hard-hitting enough. You really expect something more explosive from Morris. I think the film pales in the shadow of expectation somewhat and seems lessened because of what it isn't, which is a shame, because without all that expectation it may have been appreciated more for what it is. I assume that as he's got older some of Morris' rage has abated and his outlook has softened and that's why the film is as gentle as it is. But I still think it deserves huge credit not just for the worthiness of its subject matter but also its originality, given how derivative so many films are. Also maybe Morris couldn't utilise his usual take-no-prisoners approach because of the decision to make Moses so sympathetic. Perhaps for the first time in his career Morris has written a character he doesn't want to spit on, and this is what has "hobbled" him, if you want to call it that.
I thought the film made one major misstep, which was when Moses said he was going to call dinosaurs to help him. I just thought that was stupid. Obviously it was intended to get a laugh with it's ridiculousness but I do think that tonally it was wrong for the film and the character of Moses, it was too wacky and goofy, it made him just outright ridiculous rather than nuanced and I found it unfunny. I just couldn't buy that he would really believe in dinosaurs. All his other eccentricities I could buy but I thought the dinosaurs crack was just cheap. Also I admit the bit where he is revealed to be sitting on a horse while preaching wasn't very funny for me. But overall I don't think the film deserves much of the negativity directed at it.
Maybe also the film is a bit slight and could have used a big gun battle to liven it up a bit. But despite all this I'd have no hesitation saying it was great, I loved the story and characters and found it very entertaining.
