Posts Tagged ‘Western’

bone tomahawkBone Tomahawk is a horror-western hybrid – think The Searchers meets The Hills Have Eyes. Hey, nothing wrong with that except director/screenwriter S. Craig Zahler opted not to take the best elements of each genre, but rather all the elements of both. The result is a movie with an unconscionable run time of 132 minutes, which is at least 30 minutes too long, given the subject matter and treatment.

Put more bluntly, if the centerpiece of your movie is a lost tribe of murderous cannibal mutant freaks, don’t keep them off the screen for three-quarters of the film. (more…)

frontera04Those with strong views on the issue of immigration may find Frontera maddening. The film assiduously avoids coming down on either side of this polarizing issue. There is no macro examination here of the situation on the border between Mexico and the United States. Instead, Frontera offers a micro look at the devastating effects of the forces at play on the families on either side of the divide. Currently, a wrenching, confusing scene is playing out in the southwestern United States with unaccompanied and undocumented minors flooding across the porous border. Local authorities are overwhelmed; the federal government feeble so far in its response. The film offers no insight or answers, glib or otherwise, to what should, must, or even can be done. Frontera takes an almost old-fashioned view of the situation on the border, presenting the problem as one of young Mexican men crossing over illegally in search of employment to provide for their families.

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2When you get about 15 to 20 minutes into Doc Holliday’s Revenge, you’ll be ready to give up on the movie.

Don’t. It gets worse. Gloriously worse.

Doc Holliday’s Revenge is wake-the-kids, call-the-friends, must-see-it-again terrible. It’s not so bad, it’s good. It’s so bad, it’s great. Supremely bad. Magnificently awful.

It’s March 19, 1882, according to the graphic at the beginning of the film. But wait, the calendar in the house shows it’s September 1884. That’s the same house with an electrical light ceiling fixture, next to an air conditioning vent. Hmmm, no-fault divorce and the modern screw bottle cap, both 20th century inventions, are around as well.

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