Mark Feuerstein Archives

Review: ‘Guns & Moses,’ starring Mark Feuerstein, Neal McDonough, Alona Tal, Michael B. Silver, Craig Sheffer, Christopher Lloyd and Dermot Mulroney

July 20, 2025

by Carla Hay

Mark Feuerstein in “Guns & Moses” (Photo courtesy of Concourse Media)

Directed by Salvador Litvak

Culture Representation: Taking place in California’s High Desert region, the dramatic film “Guns & Moses” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: After a wealthy land developer is assassinated during a charity benefit event for a synagogue, the synagogue’s rabbi does his own investigation into the murder and finds a tangled web of motives and possible suspects.

Culture Audience: “Guns & Moses” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and twist-filled crime dramas told from the perspectives of unlikely investigators.

Neal McDonough, Mark Feuerstein, Alona Tal, Mercedes Mason and Dermot Mulroney in “Guns & Moses” (Photo courtesy of Concourse Media)

Despite a few stumbles and some corny dialogue, “Guns & Moses” is an absorbing murder mystery with a rabbi becoming an amateur detective in a case involving antisemitism and environmental concerns. The investigation scenes are better than the action scenes. “Guns & Moses” capably handles its storylines and character personalities for the large ensemble cast without gettting too jumbled or messy.

Directed by Salvador Litvak (who co-wrote the “Guns & Moses” screenplay with his wife Nina Litvak), “Guns & Moses” takes place in California’s High Desert region, where the movie was filmed on location. The movie had its premiere at the 2024 Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival. It’s the type of thriller that has a predictable ending, but the “whodunit” crime-solving part of the movie is intriguing.

“Guns & Moses” begins by showing a charity benefit gala for the High Desert Jewish Center, which is trying to raise money to build a synagogue for its members. The High Desert Jewish Center’s place of worship is currently the center’s headquarters, which is located in a storefront building. The synagogue has been a goal for years, but it’s been difficult for the High Desert Jewish Center to raise enough for money for it.

Rabbi Moishe “Mo” Zaltzman (played by Mark Feuerstein), who is 43 years old, is the leader of the High Desert Jewish Center. At this charity gala, which takes place in the evening, the guest of honor is Alan Rosner (played by Dermot Mulroney), a wealthy property developer. Also in attendance is Donovan Kirk (played by Neal McDonough), the mayor of High Desert, who playfully pretends to get into a verbal argument with Alan when they see each other at the ceremony. Alan and Donovan are both charismatic “alpha males” who are very good friends. Mo admires both of them and knows that they could be powerful allies.

Before Alan gives his speech, the audience at the gala is shown a pre-recorded video of Alan’s closest confidants congratulating him on receiving this honor from the High Desert Jewish Center. Appearing in the video are Alan’s business partner Tibor Farkas (played by Craig Sheffer); Alan’s brother Jeff Rosner (played by Michael B. Silver); Jeff’s wife Pauline Rosner (played by Cherie Jimenez); Alan’s wife Liat Rosner (played by Mercedes Mason); and Alan’s two stepchildren who are in their late teens: Devora Rosner (played by Brielle Angelique) and Koby Rosner (played by Massi Pregoni), who are from Liat’s previous marriage.

Liat was a widow when she married Alan, who adopted Devora and Koby after Alan and Liat got married. The only person in the congratulations video who seems like he doesn’t want to be there is Koby, a stoner who’s addicted to vaping. By contrast, Devora is an obedient “daddy’s girl,” who brims with pride and joy when talking about Alan and how she likes helping him with his company’s social media. The teenagers’ biological father (Liat’s first husband) was killed in a terrorist attack. More about Liat’s past is revealed in the movie.

Mo is happily married to his loyal wife Hindy Zaltzman (played by Alona Tal), who is the mother of their five children, ranging from ages about 9 to about 17: son Yossy Zaltzman (played by Joshua Gallup) is the eldest, followed by daughter Esty Zaltzman (played by Mila Brener), son Levy Zaltzman (played by Jarod Bainbridge), daughter Dini Zaltzman (played by Juju Journey Brener) and son Mendy Zaltzman (played by Trey Diaz Murphy). Yossy and Esty are the most eager to help when Mo begins his investigation.

During Alan’s speech at the gala, he announces that he is pledging $2 million as a gift to build the High Desert Jewish Center’s proposed synagogue. As soon as he makes the announcement, tragedy strikes: Alan is gunned down by an unidentified sniper who flees by car. Alan is killed almost instantly.

The two police partners who are at the crime scene to investigate are Detective Wallace (played by Ed Quinn) and Detective Nestor (played by Zach Villa), who believe the High Desert Jewish Center’s security chief Brenda Navarro (played by Gabrielle Ruiz) on who the killer is. Brenda suspects that the killer is a 19-year-old named Clay Gibbons (played by Jackson A. Dunn), who is known to associate with a white supremacist group and who has previously had antisemitic run-ins at the High Desert Jewish Center.

Flashbacks show an incident when Clay stood outside the building and pantomimed shooting a gun at the people who were entering the building. Brenda confronted Clay and ordered him to leave. He was defiant and taunting, to make it clear that he intended to scare people with these gun gestures.

Another flashback, shown a bit later in the movie, reveals that the most recent antisemitic incident with Clay was when he and Mo had a tense conversation when Clay was parked outside the center and was playing music too loud in Clay’s car. Mo politely asked Clay to turn down the music. Clay’s response was to go on a rant saying that Jewish people are perpetrators of white genocide, and the Holocaust was a hoax.

After the murder of Alan, Clay is quickly arrested at his home, even though Clay’s widowed father Owen Gibbons (played by Jake Busey) says that Clay was at home all night with Owen. The police don’t believe this alibi. Clay’s mother died in a car accident when he was 11. The movie also makes a point of showing the cutting scars on Clay’s arm, as an indication that he has a history of self-harming.

Mo doesn’t believe that Clay committed the murder because, as shown in the flashback where Mo confronted Clay, Mo asked Clay to listen to the Holocaust survivor story of an elderly congregant named Sol Fassbinder (played by Christopher Lloyd), whose immediate family was murdered in the Holocaust. Clay seems skeptical of the story but he eats some brownies offered by Mo as a sort of peace offering. Clay wasn’t seen at the High Desert Jewish Center again.

Mo goes to visit Clay in jail and promises to try to help prove Clay is not guilty of the murder. His conversation with Clay is short because Detective Wallace and Detective Nestor suddenly show up and scold Mo for talking to a suspect while being a witness for a possible trial. Mo also gets some backlash and criticism from other people who find out that Mo visited Clay in jail. Most of the people in the community think that Clay is guilty, even though there is no physical evidence tying Clay to the murder.

Mo trusts his instincts and decides to do his own investigation, against the objections of some people, such as Alan’s widow Liat. At the shiva wake for Alan, Mo notices that Liat is being comforted by Sid Borowski (played by Paulo Costanzo), a former professor who had been feuding with Alan. Devora is very upset to see Sid at this wake and says that Alan would never have allowed it.

Mo finds out why there was bad blood between Sid and Alan. This review won’t give away all the details, but it has to do with a lawsuit that Sid filed against Alan, with the lawsuit accusing Alan’s company of being environmentally hazardous and causing the death of birds. In response to the lawsuit, Alan dug up scandalous information from Sid’s past that caused Sid to be fired from his job.

More details also emerge about Alan’s business activities that could be motives for someone wanting him murdered. Mo’s life also gets put in danger, but he won’t stop his investigation. Security chief Brenda insists that Mo get a gun and learn how to use it. Other things happen that convince him even more that that someone who isn’t Clay was responsible for Alan’s murder.

At times, “Guns & Moses” resembles a TV series crime procedural, where Mo gets some answers and evidence a little too easily for someone who’s not a professional investigator. However, there’s some validity in believing that Mo could be better at gaining people’s trust because he’s a rabbi and not a law enforcement official. Mo is a very interesting character and seems to be written as someone who was made to be in a series of murder mystery stories.

“Guns & Moses” has some touches of comic relief, such as when Mo’s eldest son Yossy wants to tag along for something dangerous that Mo wants to do, but Mo doesn’t want Yossy to go with him because he doesn’t think underage Yossy can handle it. Yossy wails, “Did my bar mitzvah mean nothing?” Other lines of dialogue are hokey and might get unintended laughs. For example, during a pivotal scene in the movie, Hindy tells Mo: “May God and your Glock protect you.” (That sentence is also the movie’s slogan.)

Feuerstein makes Mo a believable character, even though some of the situations he’s in don’t look too credible. The cast’s acting performances are solid overall though. Fans of the 2009 to 2016 comedy/drama series “Royal Pains” should be delighted to know that former “Royal Pains” co-stars Feuerstein and Constanzo have an on-screen reunion as Mo and Sid in “Guns & Moses.” This reunion is less than 15 minutes of screen time in “Guns & Moses,” but it’s better than nothing.

If you see “Guns & Moses” in a theater and stay for the end credits, then you’ll see writer/director Salvador Litvak in a short pre-recorded message where he says that he made the film in response to the alarming rise in antisemitism in recent years. He also says in the message that although he doesn’t ever wish for antisemitic hate crimes to happen, he believes that Jewish people need to learn to protect themselves against violent attacks and should be prepared to fight back if necessary. In the message, Salvador Litvak also requests that fans of the movie give positive feedback to other people about “Guns & Moses” so that he can make more similar-themed movies.

“Guns & Moses” comes across as a non-political crime drama and not as pro-gun propaganda for Jewish people. Therefore, this politically-tinged statement from Salvador Litvak is wisely kept at the end of the film because the story is not preachy at all and in fact encourages people not to rush to judgment against those who might be considered “enemies.” Whatever anyone’s political opinions are, “Guns & Moses” should be enjoyed for what it is: a suspenseful mystery thriller that isn’t perfect but it has a memorable lead character who could be in one or more sequels if enough people want it.

Concourse Media released “Guns & Moses” in select U.S. cinemas on July 18, 2025. Fathom Entertainment will re-release “Guns & Moses” in select U.S. cinemas for a limited engagement from September 7 to September 11, 2025.

Review: ‘Babysplitters,’ starring Danny Pudi, Emily C. Chang, Mairara Walsh, Eddie Alfaro, Brian Thomas Smith and Mark Feuerstein

July 24, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Babysplitters”

Directed by Sam Friedlander

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the comedy film “Babysplitters” features a racially diverse cast (Asians, white people and a few African Americans) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two married couples who are best friends with each other decide to have a baby together because one person in each marriage is having an infertility/genetic issue, but some disagreements cause chaos in this arrangement.

Culture Audience: “Babysplitters” will appeal primarily to people who like comedies about parenting, but even the most tolerant viewers will be annoyed by some of the ridiculous plot twists in the movie.

Eddie Alfaro, Mairara Walsh, Danny Pudi and Emily C. Chang in “Babysplitters” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

The comedy film “Babysplitters” (written and directed by Sam Friedlander) took what could have been a very unique concept about unconventional parenting and then flushed all that potential down the toilet. The movie—which has an appealing and talented cast—starts out very strong, if a bit far-fetched, and then becomes an outlandish soap-opera train wreck in the last third of the movie before trying to salvage the story with a very formulaic and cop-out ending.

The movie begins, as most comedies about couples do, with a couple having sex. They are spouses Jeff Penaras (played by Danny Pudi) and Sarah Penaras (played by Emily C. Chang), who have been married for more than four years but still haven’t agreed on when’s the best time for them to start a family. As shown in the movie’s opening scene, this tension is affecting the sex that Jeff and Sarah are having in the bedroom of their rented Los Angeles home.

Sarah is soon going to turn 35, and Jeff (whose age isn’t stated but he looks like he’s a few years older than Sarah) begin to argue in bed because the issue has come up over when Sarah should get pregnant. She reminds Jeff that women who get pregnant over the age of 35 are considered to have geriatric pregnancies, which come with a high risk of miscarriages and birth defects.

Jeff says that hearing the word “geriatric” is a turnoff for him, and he seems shocked that Sarah thinks that they shouldn’t delay starting a family any longer. But it’s obvious that Jeff isn’t ready. And it has a lot to do with his fear that Sarah will love any children they have more than she loves him.

During the argument, Jeff tells Sarah: “You spend years finding the person you love most in the world, the person you want to spend your life with. Then, for some reason, you conspire to create a third person you like better than each other.”

Jeff adds, “I didn’t sign up to live my life according to a biological clock that we don’t even know if you’re reading correctly.” (It’s a very ignorant statement to make, considering that most adults know that it’s harder and riskier for women to get pregnant when they’re over the age of 35.) Sarah replies, “That’s exactly what you signed up for when you married me!”

Family planning isn’t the only discontent in Jeff and Sarah’s marriage. They both feel stifled in jobs that they don’t really like. Jeff works in sales at an online start-up company called FRM 2 TBL, which sells organic farm-to-table food to consumers. (His official title is chief executive of new orders.)

Jeff hates working in an office job where he has to wear a suit and tie. His ideal job is to be an environmental sculpture artist, which is such a niche and unusual career choice that Sarah jokes that there’s only one job opening for it in their area, and it’s already been filled.

In lieu of his dream job, Jeff would rather spend most of his work time outdoors instead of sitting at a desk. But the only outdoor job at FRM 2 TBL is a field job that would be considered a demotion for Jeff. Sarah has an outdoor job, but it’s far beneath someone of her intelligence: She gives parking tickets.

Jeff also feels out-of-place in his job because most of the people who work there are about 10 to 15 years younger than he is, including the company’s CEO, Ben Harris (played by Ben Goldsmith), who likes to skateboard in the office hallways. There’s a hilarious scene in a conference room where Jeff’s leadership skills are tested with a group of millennial subordinates who are overly politically correct. Almost everything Jeff says is offensive to them, including his exasperated response to their criticism: “I can’t correct someone because I have a penis?”

One evening, Sarah and Jeff have a fateful dinner at a restaurant with their two best friends: another married couple named Don Small (played by Eddie Alfano) and Taylor Small (played by Mairara Walsh). Don (who works as a physical trainer) is about the same age as Jeff and Sarah, while Taylor (who’s a professional ballet dancer) is 27. The two couples have the type of friendship where they freely talk about their sex lives and marital issues with each other.

Over dinner, the subject comes up about Jeff and Sarah’s unresolved conflict over when they should start a family together. Sarah is very ready; Jeff is definitely not. The closest that Sarah and Jeff have to a child is their adorable female Chihuahua named Punkie Wooster.

Meanwhile, Taylor has gotten a new job as a principal dancer at a ballet company, which means that she doesn’t feel ready to get pregnant at this point in her life. However, Don is ready to start a family because his father passed away not too long ago, and Don wants any of his future children to be able to know Don’s mother. Don also says that he wants to be the biological father of any child he raises.

Finances are also an issue, because both couples think they’re not completely ready to be able to afford kids, but they think it wouldn’t be too much of a financial strain to have one child. And the spouse who’s more reluctant in the marriage to have kids (Jeff for the Penaras couple, Taylor for the Small couple) worries how it will affect their marriage and leisure time. Jeff makes an off-handed remark that they should all have a baby together and split custody and the cost of raising the child, so that they don’t have to be full-time parents.

Jeff mentions that he has some earlobe defects that run in his family, so Don (who’s very good-looking and has a very muscular physique) would be a better sperm donor than Jeff would be. Sarah thinks it’s all a ridiculous idea, but Taylor thinks it’s a great idea if all four of them agreed to it. “My parents had joint custody, and I turned out fine,” Taylor says.

Sarah says she definitely would want to go through the experience of carrying and giving birth to a child, while Taylor says she doesn’t want to go through that physical situation because, as a ballet dancer, she’s worried about how pregnancy will affect her body. The couples end the dinner with the “babysplitting” idea planted in their heads.

A series of events then happen which result in all four agreeing to Sarah getting pregnant with Don’s sperm. Sarah is the last holdout before she agrees to the idea. She gives in to the plan because she thinks it will be one of the last chances she has to have a child before she gets too old and before Jeff changes his mind.

Before Sarah, Jeff, Taylor and Don all arrive at this decision, there’s a laugh-out-loud sequence of Sarah and Jeff visiting another married couple who are friends, but they’re not as close to Sarah and Jeff as Taylor and Don are. The other married couple are Marie (played by Andrée Vermeulen) and Brad (played by Kirk Zippel).

Sarah and Jeff’s visit with Marie and Brad is one of the best parts of “Babysplittlers” because of all the hijinks that ensue. Marie and Brad, who are overly permissive parents, have allowed a bunch of kids (about 6 to 11 years old) to have an unsupervised party in their backyard, and the kids have declared the area a “no adult zone.” Jeff doesn’t know this, so when he goes in the backyard, he’s attacked with food, water balloons and Super Soaker water guns.

Marie and Brad are serving dinner for the adults at a table that’s adjacent to the open kitchen. Jeff notices that Marie and Brad’s son (who’s about 6 or 7 years old) is standing on the kitchen counter and urinating into the sink, right where the plates are that Marie is using to serve dessert. What happens next is very funny and made even more amusing because of the comical expressions on Pudi’s face.

After Jeff, Sarah, Don and Taylor decide they’re going to have a child together, there are scenes that show them discussing how they’re going to deal with certain things when raising the child. They decide that they will tell other friends about this unusual parenting arrangement, but they won’t tell their co-workers, and they’ll use discretion on what to tell family members.

They also agree that the child will know the circumstances under which he or she was conceived. After a tense back-and-forth debate, the two couples agree that the child’s last name will be Penaras-Small, but they can’t quite agree on what the child’s first name will be. They decide to wait until they find out the child’s gender. By the way, all of these discussions and arrangements happen without any attorneys or contracts. No one said this movie was realistic.

Of course, when four people have to make decisions on how to raise the same child, there will be inevitable conflicts. Later in the movie, Sarah tells everyone that any children she has must be raised as vegan, while Don feels the opposite way because he’s a proud meat eater. And even though the couples agreed early on that the child would be raised as spiritual but not in any specific religion, Don later says that he wants any of his children to have a baptism ceremony, in order to please Don’s religious mother.

And then there’s the matter of how the child is going to be conceived. After doing some research, the couples find out that artificial insemination will be too costly and time-consuming for them, so they all decide (somewhat reluctantly) that Sarah will get pregnant with Don’s sperm the natural way. They all agree that it should take place in a hotel suite, and that Taylor and Jeff will be in an adjacent room (with the door open between the rooms) when it happens, so they won’t feel like it’s infidelity. And there’s an awkward discussion over what kind of sexual position will be acceptable to everyone.

Somehow, no one really discusses what they would want to do if Sarah doesn’t get pregnant the first time that she and Don have sex with each other. It’s certainly not brought up when the two couples gather for group appointments with their chosen obstetrician Dr. Palmer (played by Brian Thomas Smith) or when Jeff meets with his understanding therapist Dr. Cooper (played by Mark Feuerstein) and discusses the entire process. Dr. Cooper’s office is where Jeff has some fantasy sequences (good and bad) about how things will turn out.

When it’s time for the hoped-for impregnation, the sex scene goes on for too long, for reasons that are shown in the movie. It’s one of the funnier parts of “Babysplitters,” and it showcases the comedic talents of all the actors. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie goes downhill quickly after that scene, with some ridiculously bad plot twists. One of the plot twists ends up becoming completely unnecessary.

Although the movie is about two couples, Jeff and Sarah are the main couple whose perspectives are shown, and their family-planning issues are what started this arrangement. Pudi does a very good job at playing the conflicted and often-immature Jeff, but Chang is the standout for her believable and completely natural-looking performance, even when the movie turns into a steaming pile of absurd junk.

Writer/director Friedlander definitely has a knack for filming comedic scenes. But the movie becomes a complete mess because the screenplay has an over-eagerness to have too many implausible, not-very-funny things happening, just to create more contrived comedy. The movie would have been much better without the plot twists.

“Babysplitters” is the equivalent of a false positive on a pregnancy test: It gives the wrong impression that a certain experience is going to happen, when in reality, the results end up being one big mistake.

Gravitas Ventures released “Babysplitters” on digital and VOD on July 24, 2020.