At the Los Angeles premiere of “God Is a Bullet” earlier this week, screenwriter/director Nick Cassavetes noted that it’s taken him almost two decades to get the film made. The result is a distasteful, overlong slog, but at least the filmmaker appears to have put everything he wanted to up on the screen.

改编自泊斯德on Teran’s well-regarded 1999 novel, the film is supposedly “based on true events.” Whether true or not, “God” layers excess amounts of tattoos, pseudo-spiritual debate and brutalizing of women onto a fairly simple search-and-rescue plot structure. There’s something about redemption going on, too, but it’s hard to take seriously amid the film’s satanic-ish depravity and shotgun-blasted corpses.

When his ex-wife is murdered and their 14-year-old daughter kidnapped by a loony criminal cult, small-town desk cop Bob Hightower (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of “Game of Thrones” fame) teams up to find the girl with a recovering junkie/prostitute who goes by the name of Case Hardin (Maika Monroe of “Watcher,” who, as she often does, brings intense, focused talent to dicey material).

Hard Case, as they call her, was snatched by the same bunch of pervs when she was 11 and was somehow permitted to walk away years later from the cult, although not before getting kicked around by its psycho leader Cyrus (“Watcher” co-star Karl Glusman). She wants revenge, but also to claw some kind of self-respect back from her shattered life by guiding the super-square cop through the underworld she knows too well.

这是鲍勃的刺青and the villains sport so he’ll fit in (spoiler/nonspoiler: He doesn’t fit in anywhere). Case constantly provokes the religious Bob with trash talk and profane arguments as they tool around the Southwest (or Mexico, the movie’s never quite clear about which side of the border it’s on) in his sturdy old pickup truck.

“Forget it, Bob, you’re strictly the missionary position,” is her, and the film’s, best line.

Case’s mouth gets her in physical peril as the pair gets closer to its dangerous prey. That’s not an excuse for the abuse she consequently suffers, though the film seems to think it is.

Amid more garish body art and confusion as to whether their adversaries are devil worshipers or just inept drug runners, Bob and Case encounter legions of skeezy scumbags — only one of whom, Jonathan Moss Tucker’s jittery Errol, is interesting. Jamie Foxx, January Jones and Ethan Suplee try to contribute memorable character turns, none of which are very credible. Bob grows more ruthless as events demand, but he never really registers as someone whose soul is on the line. Referred to as “Doorstop” by the bad guys, he’s bland even at his most vicious.

Subplots blossom and go bang back home, but they grow as tedious as Bob and Case’s long desert drives. Case’s scheme to get Cyrus has some underlying logic to it, but as Bob occasionally notes, it can be awfully hard to understand. Grunge-forward set design and murky lighting don’t help. It’s a weird bit of relief, however, when Cassavetes shifts into Tarantino-like blood comedy, then some “Mad Max”-type over-revved action. He’s no Quentin Tarantino or George Miller, though, and by the time the movie gets to its 11th ending or so, audiences could zone out.

Cassavetes made “The Notebook” and some OK, thoughtful thrillers early in the century (“John Q,” “Alpha Dog”). He is of course the son of the late, great John Cassavetes (“Husbands,” “A Woman Under the Influence”). It can honestly be said that Nick displays something like his father’s fierce, independent filmmaking streak in “God Is a Bullet,” so here’s hoping he’ll apply that to more enlightening material in his next project.

Bob Strauss is a freelance writer.