Americans are tired.
We’re tired of being defined by our skin color or gender. We’re tired of being dismissed for our political beliefs. And we’re tired of stale, finger-wagging content manufactured by corporate suits whose only goal is to avoid getting canceled.
Fortunately, movies are becoming great again.
We’ve been down this road before. In the early 1970s, moviegoing had tapered off, and the studios blamed the rise of television, the hippies, the Russians — anything to stop them from confronting the fact that movies had gotten stale. People knew the movies were unlikely to surprise, exhilarate, or inspire them, so they stopped going to the theater.
But then came a new wave of iconoclastic directors — Coppola and Scorsese, Spielberg and Lucas — people with fresh values, fresh stories, and fresh characters.
It was a glorious era for film. Audiences returned in droves, the studios made tons of money, and for years, it seemed like nothing was going to change.
And then, a few years ago, it happened again. This time, Hollywood blamed COVID, streaming, social media, and the economy for their relentless parade of flops. But the truth is, they simply lost touch with who America is and what America wants.
Here’s an example of how fantastically disconnected Hollywood has become. My new movie Guns & Moses is an independent action thriller starring Mark Feuerstein, Neal McDonough, Christopher Lloyd, and Dermot Mulroney. Made outside the Hollywood system and coming to theaters on July 18, it’s the story of Mo Zaltzman, a beloved Hasidic rabbi in a small, high desert town.
When Rabbi Mo’s synagogue is violently attacked, police quickly arrest a young white nationalist with a history of harassing the congregation. The rabbi, however, thinks the troubled teen may be innocent.
Since no one will investigate, Rabbi Mo becomes the detective, and as the bodies pile up, he learns how to use a gun in order to battle the real enemy. At the heart of the film is the unexpected bond between the rabbi and the antisemite, as well as Mo’s looming fear that he won’t pull the trigger if he has to — or that he will.
The film was inspired by the 2019 synagogue shooting in Poway, California. I wrote it with my wife and creative partner, Nina Litvak, and we prepared for it by watching a thriller a day for two years. We shot it at the end of 2022, and we were still in post-production on October 7, 2023.
We knew a story of Jews under attack who chose to fight back would always be relevant, but we could not have imagined the horror of the Jewish people’s deadliest day since the Holocaust, nor the global spike in antisemitism ever since. Sadly, our movie could not be timelier.
My producing partners showed Guns & Moses to a big suit at a major Hollywood agency whose job is to sell independent movies. In other words, a supposed expert on what America wants to see.
“Great movie,” he said. “You guys are going to make a lot of money in streaming.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but I see Guns & Moses as a theatrical release.”
“Yeah, but how many Jews are there really in New York, Los Angeles, and Florida?” he asked.
“Well, that’s an important segment of our audience,” I said. “But a much bigger segment is Christian and conservative.”
“What are you talking about?” he said. “Those people hate Jews.”
My jaw dropped. This moviemaking “expert” had casually slandered the majority of the country, the people he flies over on trips between New York and Los Angeles — people he’s previously never met.
Unfortunately, this man is not an anomaly in Hollywood. He’s the norm. Once rock-solid franchises now flop because they’ve become vehicles for scared studio executives to virtue signal inside their bubble. They tell each other Americans are ignorant bigots, and if America won’t consume their stale content, it’s because America’s values are wrong, not theirs.
They mock people of faith, portraying them as idiots, hypocrites or dangerous fanatics, thereby alienating half of America.
It’s bad for business. But Hollywood is no longer about making money — it’s about disseminating the approved narrative. Once led by visionaries, the movie business is now run by conformists with brazen contempt for regular Americans and traditional values.
Meanwhile, independent, faith-based movies are booming. Such films used to be syrupy and unsophisticated, but they now rival Hollywood’s output in story, acting, cinematography, and more. While the faith-based genre was once cloyingly preachy, it’s now Hollywood that’s stuck on a soapbox preaching wokeism, while faith films are asking interesting questions and offering new approaches to explore them. Guns & Moses offers something extra fresh; a Jewish action hero who takes his faith seriously and is neither nebbishy nor neurotic.
Film Threat, a secular publication that champions independent cinema, said the movie “hits at the right time, with a world that’s getting more dangerous by the minute and a media landscape too squeamish to tackle faith, violence, and identity without neutering the message.”
Groups are forming across the country to attend our opening weekend on July 18, and they’re as diverse as America: different faiths, ethnicities, political views and geographic regions. What unites them is a desire to be entertained by an action-packed thriller that’s consistent with their values; a movie that keeps them on the edge of their seat and gives them something to talk about afterward.
If that appeals to you, come out to a theater on July 18. Together, we can send a message to Hollywood: this is the kind of movie America likes.
Salvador Litvak is the director of Guns & Moses and the founder of Accidental Talmudist. Learn more at GunsandMosesMovie.com
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.