Frivolous Lawsuit: The main character is a fisherman whose boat is destroyed by lightning, but he isn't allowed to claim damages from his insurance company because the lightning was "an act of God." So he sues God. (God is represented in court by clergymen.) Face–Heel Turn: Steve teases this when the Insurance companies offer a settlement to drop the case, where it looks like he'll abandon the other victims who joined him in his quest. in, the bed gag was done by props people positioned below slamming the bed up towards Billy Connolly, the special effects people not being able to rig it to get the joke to work. Again, because of Davis’s tendency to deliver early in her takes, Joffe recalls that her talk of her memories was done in close up, and take one was the one that made it into the cut. Joffe was all the more impressed because of the difficulty of doing an expository story-telling piece, which began with the line “when I was about ten …”

A typical example might be cited about 43 and a half minutes in, when Watson references a line originally along the lines of the dog barks and the caravan moves on. Watson preferred “the camels moan”... Connolly is good in the lead thanks to his natural charm. He hones down his occasionally abrasive personality and makes an engaging lead. Sadly Davis is not as good. She is so-so at the start but she cannot cope with the developments in her character later on. Friels saunters around in the way that he normally does in small parts in Australian films. Beyond him the cast is OK at best and it does fall to Connolly to carry everything – which, although he is OK he cannot do the whole time.The producers licensed the right to remake the film in Hindi for release in India. OMG – Oh My God!, based on the original premise of The Man Who Sued God, with an Indian story and a quite different plotline and altered climax, was released in 2012. OMG was a box office hit in India, and was critically acclaimed. [9] From around the 42 minute mark, there’s another long cue linking a number of scenes, and Bridie notes that it took a lot of reworking, as often happens with cues given the job of running through and linking scenes. mins on, with Billy Connolly’s closing argument (he withdraws from the case to avoid his brother being called, and then the judge kindly allows him to carry on with his speechifying), Joffe suggests previous inspirations, such as Billy Wilder’s films, and Tracy and Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart doing his man of the people against the system routine (again the lawyer is allowed to roam and come up to the bench during the speech). Judy Davis is a newspaper reporter who takes an interest in his case, but then in the climactic court case, is revealed herself to be fiercely hostile to insurance companies (thanks to events in her past). Later he notes that unlike some performers, who can deliver the same performance with regularity, both Davis and Connolly were inclined to offer variations, something a little bit different every time, so he had to have his wits about him to get it.

The film opened strongly, and David Dale provided a contest between Lantana and The Man Who Sued God in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10th November 2001: In dealing with corporations in the modern life you spend a lot of time on the phone listening to recorded music and pressing buttons - it is one of the great sources of tension. Our hero, Steve Myers, is an antidote to that. The film is about the faceless world we live in and, I guess, taking on God who is the most faceless of all. The concept of satirical, clever comedy about a man who chooses to sue God was too appealing to ignore. Impossible Insurance: Inverted. Steve sues God (through the clergy) because his insurance company exploited the standard loophole of " acts of God " to prevent paying him. Joffe recalls the scene was done at the lowest tide of the year, so the filming started with the tide very close to the top of the pier (the receding tide marks can be seen on the jetty as the shots progress). Davis did her own stunt work for the close-ups, though Joffe notes she wasn’t a particularly good swimmer.Mark Joffe has spent several summer holidays at Bermagui and admits that the feeling of the town inevitably permeated the screenplay.