Dennis Harvey Film CriticRace, class and cultural divides are probed with intriguing understatement in “God’s Country.” Julian Higgins’ first feature can be taken as a drama with thriller elements or a low-key thriller with atypical dramatic nuance, working either way as a quietly effective balance between genre, social issue and character study elements. Based on a James Lee Burke story, it stars Thandiwe Newton as a college professor whose fish-out-of-water status in rural Montana is exacerbated when she runs afoul of trespassing working-class hunters.