Last night, I made myself watch Guns & Moses. I didn’t think it would be a good movie, but I felt it was important to watch it because it encourages Jews to embrace their Second Amendment rights. After all, any movie with the tagline “May God and your Glock protect you,” especially if it revolves around a gun-toting Rabbi, is a movie that I think needs an audience.

The surprise was that Guns & Moses was an extremely well-done and enjoyable movie. The main character is a Rabbi who reminds me a bit of Columbo, and the plot is interesting, with well-developed characters. All of it was well performed by quality actors, ranging from big names (e.g., Christopher Lloyd) to solid working actors you know from your favorite TV shows and movies.

The basic plot is simple: The setting is a small high-desert community in California. Rabbi Mo Zaltzman (Mark Feuerstein) is an Orthodox Jew who just wants to move his synagogue out of the strip mall. When the main funder of a new synagogue, Alan Rosner (Dermot Mulroney), is shot at a reception, the police immediately arrest Clay Biggons (Jackson A. Dunn), a 19-year-old who is an open white supremacist.

And that’s where the plot really begins, because the Rabbi cannot believe that Gibbons killed Zaltzman. He starts investigating things and opens a can of worms. I will not discuss those worms here because it would give away too much. What matters is that, along the way, the Rabbi’s life is threatened by gun-toting bad guys.

Navy veteran Brenda Navarro (Gabrielle Ruiz), the synagogue’s security officer (and yes, sadly, American synagogues need security officers), insists that the Rabbi and his wife learn how to use guns (both pistols and long guns). Nor does she just stop at the basic safety rules, which can never be repeated too often:

• Always keep your weapon pointed in a safe direction.
• Treat all guns as though they are loaded
• Never point your gun at anything you don’t intend to destroy
• Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.
• Always be sure of both your target and what’s beyond it.

Instead, she forces them to learn real tactical skills: instant responses, speed shooting, and speed reloading. As it turns out (and I’m not giving away anything here), it’s a good thing they learned these lessons.

What worried me going into the movie was that I knew it was a polemic; that is, a movie intended to make a point, rather than merely to entertain. So often, polemics are boring.

What delighted me was that I enjoyed the movie. The plot was standard in its own way because there are only so many variations you can make on the theme of a crime investigation show. However, subject to that genre limitation, it was a very good plot, and it took me two-thirds of the movie before I figured out whodunnit. (I usually figure that out before the halfway point.)

One of my concerns about this movie, which barely opened in a few theaters before going to streaming, was that it would have amateur-hour actors. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Indeed, the movie was very well-cast.

Christopher Lloyd had a small but powerful role as a Holocaust survivor, and carried it off with panache and aplomb. Another big name, although I’d actually never seen him before, was Dermot Mulroney, who played one of the Rabbi’s suspects.

I also recognized a couple of very good actors from shows I’ve enjoyed over the years. Ed Quinn, who played a great character in the charming Eureka, was one of the officers investigating the crime. Alona Tal, whom I recognized from Supernatural, played Hindy, the Rabbi’s wife. What surprised me was learning that she was born and grew up in Israel. In Supernatural, her American accent was perfect. When it came to handling weapons, she knew what she was doing, having served in the IDF before coming to America.

Other faces familiar to me were Neal McDonough as the mayor, Jake Busey (Gary’s son) as the father of the white supremacist, Mercedes Mason as the murdered man’s wife, and Michael B. Silver (whom I recognized from Legally Blonde) as the murdered man’s brother. I didn’t recognize the others—I don’t get out much—but they were all fine actors.

One of the other things I also liked about the movie is that it took gentle potshots at solar panels, California’s high-speed train to nowhere, and California’s insane bureaucracy, especially in the environmental realm. These are not major points in the movie, but they were worth noting.

Overall, I highly recommend this movie, especially for Jews. One of the biggest problems with American Jews is that they looked at the pogroms and the Holocaust that they and their ancestors escaped and created a false syllogism: Because their killers had guns, they didn’t just conclude that their killers were evil; they concluded that the guns were evil, too.

Jews need to unlearn that syllogism. Unfortunately, too many of them are wedded to leftism. They can’t see that leftism wants to create an armed government and unarmed people, exactly the situation that plagued Jews in Poland, Russia, and Nazi-controlled lands.

Changes in the world—the October 7 attack against a citizenry that, ironically, was mostly unarmed, and rising antisemitism—may change Jewish attitudes. I think this movie might help this change come faster.

You can watch the movie on Amazon Prime.

Image: Fair Use for review purposes.