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No Man of God Movie Review

No Man of God is a 2021 crime drama film directed by Amber Sealey and starring Elijah Wood and Luke Kirby. It’s a very competent, effective chamber piece.

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“As you all know, no good deed goes unpunished“

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The movie is about the complicated relationship that formed between the FBI analyst Bill Hagmaier and serial killer Bundy during Bundy’s final years on death row. There have been similar movies made before, but this one is focused primarily on this relationship between these two men, one an agent and the other a monster. It’s one of those dialogue and character-driven movies that are mostly confined to just one location.

And I love this type of filmmaking, so this one also appealed to me despite some flaws. Whenever the movie cut away from these two, it was dull and unappealing. Thankfully, those were only smaller bits and pieces as most of the film happens in the interrogation room.

The movie faithfully recreates Bundy and how manipulative and extremely intelligent he was, but also thankfully portrays him for once as being soulless and honestly very pathetic. I was happy that the film did not make a case for why his death sentence was wrong as otherwise it would have been a big issue for me.

The cat and mouse back and forth between these two men was so effective that this drama was honestly captivating in spite of its similarity. I was also genuinely surprised by the effectiveness of its acting. I hadn’t expected Elijah Wood to be this good, but his Bill Hagmaier is very memorable. As for Luke Kirby, I wasn’t familiar with this actor before, but color me surprised when I watched this excellent performance where he fully committed to this role that required him to be both charming and incredibly disturbing.

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No Man of God is well edited and paced, but I wanted more intense moments like that near the end where he describes in detail one of his murders. That was quite disturbing to watch. The film’s technically obviously only okay, but the dialogue is excellent throughout.

No Man of God is a captivating chamber drama about the relationship that developed between an FBI agent and serial killer Ted Bundy in his final years. This is the type of small-scale, technically inferior, but still engaging drama that is effectively character and dialogue-driven. The conversations are very interesting to follow while the acting from both Elijah Wood and Luke Kirby was surprisingly terrific.

My Rating – 4