Oh, God! Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Richard Corliss

Critical Essay by Richard Corliss

[The] dialogue in Oh, God! is already so low-sodium (its strongest obscenity is "crap") that it's just about the only current non-Disney film that could be shown, as is, on TV. Today's question: Why is it heading toward a $30-million domestic gross? Possible answer: Because, in some cases at least, people go to the movies to see exactly what they can get on TV—only more so….

[The character of Jerry Landers suggests] nothing so much as the common-man hero of such Frank Capra social comedies as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and It's a Wonderful Life…. Oh, God! is the very model of some modern minor Capracorn: from the seemingly random selection by fate (or, here, God) of an average Joe (here Jerry), to the hero's growing anger at his fellow Americans' apathy, to the ultimate, uplifting conversion of the infidels and the recognition that in each of us, no...
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