Mark Feuerstein as Rabbi Mo Zaltzman in ‘Guns & Moses’
Your average orthodox rabbi on the street is more likely to be holding a pair of teffilin than he is a gun. That same rabbi is more likely to eat a pound of bacon than he is to solve a murder. Okay, maybe the bacon thing is a bit hyperbolic, but the rest of the argument still stands: Jewish clergymen don’t fit into the traditional badass action hero archetype. Filmmaker Salvador Litvak hopes to change all that with his neo-Western thriller, Guns & Moses (in theaters everywhere this Friday; click here for tickets).
“Hollywood has been all too quick to either show dead Jews in the Holocaust or shticky, nebbishy Jews, which I enjoy,” says Litvak, whom you may know better as Accidental Talmudist. “I love Seinfeld and Larry David … and Adam Sandler. I love those comedies. But that’s not the limit of Jewish experience, God knows.”
Despite its cheeky title, the project — which Litvak wrote alongside his wife and Pictures From The Fringe producing partner, Nina — “was always meant to be a proper thriller with a lot of action in it,” explains the director. “We really did a deep dive on the genre. We watched a thriller a day for two years, six days a week (we didn’t watch one on Shabbos).”
Set in the fictional California town of High Desert, the movie centers around Moses “Mo” Zaltzman (Mark Feuerstein; Royal Pains), a local Chabad rabbi who gradually decides to solve the murder of philanthropist and solar energy magnate Alan Rosner (Dermot Mulroney; My Best Friends’s Wedding) after the man is publicly gunned down at a community event.
Everyone, including the town’s sympathetic mayor, Donavon Kirk (Neal McDonough; Captain America: The First Avenger), is more than ready to chalk the murder up to anti-Semitism and lay the blame at the feet of a young neo-Nazi named Clay Gibbons (Jackson Dunne; Brightburn), but Rabbi Mo isn’t so sure. Refusing to let the possibly innocent young man take the fall, he begins his own investigation and finds himself becoming equal parts private detective and lone ranger.
In his search for justice on the frontier, however, Rabbi Mo unknowingly wades into the center of a lethal conspiracy tied to a shady land deal. And as the bodies start to pile up, the good rabbi and his spouse, Hindy (Alona Tal; Burn Notice), must learn to protect themselves for the sake of their family and congregants, one of whom is a Holocaust survivor (Christopher Lloyd; Back to the Future).
“I feel like this movie is a bit Chinatown meets The Chosen,” says Feuerstein. “[Getting] to play Rabbi Mo, who morphs and evolves into someone who’s not afraid to protect himself, was an honor. I’m thrilled to be a part of changing that image.”
Before accepting the role, Feuerstein sat down to discuss the character over a classic Hollywood power lunch, albeit with an authentically Jewish twist: the business meeting took place in the Litvaks’ backyard, inside their a sukkah. Once the actor was officially on board, he began to grow a beard and shadow real-world Chabad rabbis. “They’re so loving and full of ruach, spirit and generosity,” he notes, admitting that while the facial hair was “itchy AF, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for this movie and this character.”
The idea for the script was partially inspired by the 2019 shooting at a Chabad-run synagogue in the San Diego suburb of Poway that left one dead and three injured (the perpetrator received two consecutive life sentences). Litvak ended up interviewing the synagogue’s rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein, who lost a finger in the attack, but not his faith.
“I got to know him and then watched him become a national figure in the ensuing days, calling for mitzvahs,” recalls the writer-director. “Calling for Jews and all people to do good deeds, to make something good and meaningful come in the wake of this tragedy. I was very moved by that, and that really became the core for Guns & Moses.”
“We have a character who quotes Rabbi Hillel and says, ‘In a place where there is no man, be the man.’ That lesson, that message, is not specific to the Jewish community,” agrees Feuerstein. “That is [applicable] to all of us, and we need more of that in the world now … in a time where people are so wont to find the easiest answer in their silos on social media, rather than do the work, not accept misinformation, but figure out the answers for themselves. I think Rabbi Mo is a great example for intellectual curiosity, emotional curiosity, and human connection.”
McDonough, a devout Catholic who founded the faith-based McDonough Company production banner alongside his wife, Ruve, says he’s always on the lookout for religious-tinted projects with an uplifting message. Joining Guns & Moses was
“a no-brainer,” he affirms. “Whether you’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, or Buddhist — I don’t care what it is. I like to be part of films where people go to the cinema and are called out to be better after they leave. A better husband, a better father, a better co-worker, a better child of God.”
“Films that used to address those kinds of questions were often a little bit syrupy and cloying,” continues Litvak. “There’s a quality level that was acceptable that some would say was not up to the level of Hollywood. I would say those days are over. There’s a very sophisticated machinery that’s now engaged to make films that address big questions of faith at the very highest levels with the stars, with the performances, with the cinematography, with the production value that really challenge people. And we’re very proud to be part of that new wave … You look at Kingdom Story Company, and what they’ve done with Jesus Revolution and House of David, which is like Lord of the Rings-level. It’s just good, high-level filmmaking.”
Salvador Litvak
At the same time, the filmmaker hoped to make a contemporary Western/thriller redolent of genre touchstones such as Howard Hawks’s Rio Bravo and Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. “I want to be inspired by the greats, I want to try and live up to them,” he says. “We may fall short, but what we’re going for is scenes and performances and story that’s iconic and that operates at that level.”
To that end, he filmed a majority of Guns & Moses in Santa Clarita — where many Western-themed endeavors across film and television have been shot — and sought to create dynamic set pieces at memorable locations like the Mojave Solar Project facility, which serves as the backdrop for a tense sequence in which Rabbi Mo evades a masked assassin. “[It was] strongly influenced by the Mount Rushmore scene [in North by Northwest,” reveals Litvak, later going on to add: “No one’s ever seen anything like it with those 200-yard-long parabolic troughs. I mean, it really is something out of a James Bond movie and I think just gives so much production value.”
While he knew “a movie about Jews under attack who fight back would always be relevant,” Litvak could not foresee just how topical the film would become in the wake of the October 7 terror attack in Israel (the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust) and the anti-Jewish rhetoric and crimes that have become rampant ever since.
“We’ve been searching for our friends and we have found them in unexpected and unlikely places, and specifically in the Christian community,” says Feuerstein. “So regardless of the world and politics, I just want to say how genuine it was, this connection between Neal, Sal, and I throughout this project. Neal did bring 200% of himself to this movie, but it’s also a tribute to Neal that he lent his specific brand of faith to this movie, which is not of that same brand, and yet gave it with all his heart.”
McDonough concludes: “Really good families root for each other, and that’s the thing missing in the landscape right now, in the whole world. We forget to root for each other. We forget we’re actually brothers and sisters through God. It doesn’t matter your race, creed, religion. Movies like this make you think, ‘Hmm, can I be better as a child of God to a certain type of people that I don’t really understand or know very well? Maybe that’s my fault because I don’t understand or know them very well. Maybe I am bigoted Maybe I am racist. How can I get over these things to be a better brother and sister for everyone else on the planet?’”
Guns & Moses arrives in theaters nationwide this Friday, July 18. Click here for tickets!
